Patriot Investment Management Group Inc. Sells 266 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Patriot Investment Management Group Inc. lowered its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 17.3% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 1,275 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 266 shares during the period. Patriot Investment Management Group Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $403,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. SkyView Investment Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 10.3% during the second quarter. SkyView Investment Advisors LLC now owns 20,839 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,470,000 after buying an additional 1,954 shares during the period. Annandale Capital LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 48.6% during the second quarter. Annandale Capital LLC now owns 4,584 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,203,000 after buying an additional 1,500 shares during the period. Full Sail Capital LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 1.3% during the second quarter. Full Sail Capital LLC now owns 15,041 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,948,000 after buying an additional 187 shares during the period. Aviso Wealth Management increased its position in shares of Visa by 1.9% during the second quarter. Aviso Wealth Management now owns 5,121 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,344,000 after buying an additional 94 shares during the period. Finally, Buck Wealth Strategies LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the second quarter worth $6,812,000. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on V shares. Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Susquehanna raised their price target on shares of Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 11th. Macquarie raised their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Robert W. Baird raised their price target on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $335.52.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:V opened at $330.20 on Monday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $314.95 and a 200 day moving average of $290.59. The stock has a market cap of $615.11 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.94, a P/E/G ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $331.09. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.33 earnings per share. Visa’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.71%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 24.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Profile

Visa Inc operates as a payment technology company in the United States and internationally. The company operates VisaNet, a transaction processing network that enables authorization, clearing, and settlement of payment transactions. It also offers credit, debit, and prepaid card products; tap to pay, tokenization, and click to pay services; Visa Direct, a solution that facilitates the delivery of funds to eligible cards, deposit accounts, and digital wallets; Visa B2B Connect, a multilateral business-to-business cross-border payments network; Visa Cross-Border Solution, a cross-border consumer payments solution; and Visa DPS that provides a range of value-added services, including fraud mitigation, dispute management, data analytics, campaign management, a suite of digital solutions, and contact center services.