Cullen Investment Group LTD. Trims Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Cullen Investment Group LTD. decreased its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.2% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 32,464 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 69 shares during the period. Visa accounts for about 1.5% of Cullen Investment Group LTD.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 14th biggest position. Cullen Investment Group LTD.’s holdings in Visa were worth $10,260,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Visa by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its stake in Visa by 6.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Visa by 7.7% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after buying an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its holdings in Visa by 2.4% during the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after buying an additional 345,829 shares during the period. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in Visa by 2.2% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after acquiring an additional 312,286 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

V has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Barclays upped their price objective on Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, November 4th. Monness Crespi & Hardt reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Macquarie increased their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, TD Cowen lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $330.85.

Visa Stock Down 0.4 %

Shares of V stock opened at $306.59 on Tuesday. 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 Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $321.61. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $312.44 and a 200 day moving average of $287.32. The stock has a market cap of $571.14 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.51, a P/E/G ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.33 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.77%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

Visa Company 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.