Ewing Morris & Co. Investment Partners Ltd. Trims Holdings in Visa Inc. $V

Key Points

• Ewing Morris & Co. Investment Partners Ltd. significantly reduced its holdings in Visa Inc. by 78.3% during Q1, leaving them with 967 shares valued at approximately $339,000.
• Insider trading activity is notable, with General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg selling 2,027 shares and insider Paul D. Fabara selling 11,636 shares, indicating a trend in insider selling within the company.
• Visa recently announced a quarterly dividend of $0.59 per share and has received various new price target adjustments from analysts, with Macquarie raising theirs to $425.00.

Ewing Morris & Co. Investment Partners Ltd. trimmed its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V - Free Report) by 78.3% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 967 shares of the credit-card processor's stock after selling 3,490 shares during the period. Ewing Morris & Co. Investment Partners Ltd.'s holdings in Visa were worth $339,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. Keystone Global Partners LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter worth about $26,000. von Borstel & Associates Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter worth about $27,000. Measured Risk Portfolios Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter worth about $47,000. O Brien Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter worth about $54,000. Finally, Global X Japan Co. Ltd. purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter worth about $56,000. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Visa

In related news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,027 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $344.02, for a total transaction of $697,328.54. Following the sale, the general counsel directly owned 11,925 shares in the company, valued at $4,102,438.50. The trade was a 14.53% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 11,636 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, June 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $375.00, for a total transaction of $4,363,500.00. Following the sale, the insider owned 26,413 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,904,875. This represents a 30.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 77,127 shares of company stock worth $28,340,553 over the last ninety days. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V opened at $351.92 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $268.23 and a 1 year high of $375.51. The company has a market cap of $645.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.34 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $348.35 and a 200-day moving average of $347.42.

Visa (NYSE:V - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.85 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 52.16% and a return on equity of 58.93%. The company had revenue of $10.17 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.82 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.42 earnings per share. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 14.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, August 12th will be paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, August 12th. Visa's payout ratio is currently 23.05%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently weighed in on V. Macquarie increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $380.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. UBS Group reiterated a "buy" rating and set a $415.00 price objective (up from $405.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, July 30th. Truist Financial cut their price objective on shares of Visa from $400.00 to $397.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, July 17th. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $390.00 to $391.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a report on Wednesday, July 2nd. Finally, Mizuho raised shares of Visa from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and increased their target price for the stock from $359.00 to $425.00 in a research report on Thursday, June 5th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-two have assigned a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Visa has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $380.84.

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.

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