AE Wealth Management LLC Reduces Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

AE Wealth Management LLC lessened its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V - Free Report) by 0.9% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 178,936 shares of the credit-card processor's stock after selling 1,535 shares during the period. AE Wealth Management LLC's holdings in Visa were worth $62,710,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of V. Lakeridge Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 5.7% in the first quarter. Lakeridge Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,507 shares of the credit-card processor's stock worth $528,000 after acquiring an additional 81 shares during the period. Blue Rock Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $306,000. Aptus Capital Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Visa by 19.8% during the fourth quarter. Aptus Capital Advisors LLC now owns 182,658 shares of the credit-card processor's stock worth $57,727,000 after buying an additional 30,185 shares in the last quarter. Eagle Strategies LLC boosted its position in Visa by 2.5% in the fourth quarter. Eagle Strategies LLC now owns 2,568 shares of the credit-card processor's stock worth $811,000 after purchasing an additional 63 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Rafferty Asset Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 7.7% during the 4th quarter. Rafferty Asset Management LLC now owns 610,517 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $192,948,000 after buying an additional 43,546 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

V has been the topic of several recent research reports. William Blair restated an "outperform" rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, April 30th. Mizuho upgraded Visa from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and upped their price objective for the company from $359.00 to $425.00 in a research report on Thursday, June 5th. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price target on Visa from $400.00 to $410.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Tuesday, May 27th. The Goldman Sachs Group initiated coverage on Visa in a research note on Monday, June 2nd. They issued a "neutral" rating for the company. Finally, Evercore ISI assumed coverage on Visa in a research report on Wednesday, April 9th. They set an "in-line" rating and a $330.00 price objective on the stock. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $375.52.

Visa Price Performance

NYSE:V traded down $0.99 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $354.30. 5,882,734 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 5,551,461. The company has a current ratio of 1.08, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The firm's fifty day moving average price is $356.47 and its 200 day moving average price is $344.69. The company has a market cap of $653.74 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.61, a P/E/G ratio of 2.40 and a beta of 0.92. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $375.51.

Visa (NYSE:V - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.76 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $2.68 by $0.08. Visa had a return on equity of 56.28% and a net margin of 52.86%. The business had revenue of $9.59 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.57 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $2.51 earnings per share. The business's revenue was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, May 13th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.67%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, May 13th. Visa's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.72%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,575 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Thursday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $345.58, for a total transaction of $889,868.50. Following the sale, the general counsel owned 11,925 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $4,121,041.50. This represents a 17.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,630 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $353.82, for a total value of $3,053,466.60. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 537 shares in the company, valued at $190,001.34. This represents a 94.14% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 101,108 shares of company stock worth $36,771,200 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company's stock.

About Visa

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.