New Century Financial Group LLC Lowers Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. $V

New Century Financial Group LLC decreased its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V - Free Report) by 65.5% in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 1,450 shares of the credit-card processor's stock after selling 2,752 shares during the quarter. New Century Financial Group LLC's holdings in Visa were worth $515,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Whelan Financial boosted its position in Visa by 25.5% in the 2nd quarter. Whelan Financial now owns 2,570 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $912,000 after buying an additional 523 shares during the period. Vanderbilt University purchased a new position in Visa in the second quarter valued at $3,551,000. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management grew its stake in Visa by 4.3% during the 2nd quarter. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management now owns 30,963 shares of the credit-card processor's stock worth $10,993,000 after purchasing an additional 1,271 shares in the last quarter. Gray Private Wealth LLC grew its stake in Visa by 30.7% during the 2nd quarter. Gray Private Wealth LLC now owns 758 shares of the credit-card processor's stock worth $269,000 after purchasing an additional 178 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Custos Family Office LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 26.8% in the 2nd quarter. Custos Family Office LLC now owns 1,139 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $405,000 after buying an additional 241 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently weighed in on V shares. Robert W. Baird set a $410.00 target price on shares of Visa and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a research note on Monday. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $386.00 to $402.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 30th. Barclays reaffirmed an "overweight" rating and set a $408.00 price objective (up from $396.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Weiss Ratings reissued a "buy (b)" rating on shares of Visa in a report on Saturday, September 27th. Finally, UBS Group reaffirmed a "buy" rating and set a $415.00 price target (up from $405.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, July 30th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Visa currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $389.00.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of V opened at $349.21 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $273.24 and a 1-year high of $375.51. The stock has a market cap of $640.03 billion, a PE ratio of 34.10, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 0.90. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $343.65 and a 200 day moving average price of $346.89.

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

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, August 12th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, August 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. Visa's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.05%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $342.30, for a total transaction of $3,589,015.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 537 shares in the company, valued at $183,815.10. This represents a 95.13% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,027 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Monday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $344.02, for a total transaction of $697,328.54. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel owned 11,925 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,102,438.50. This represents a 14.53% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 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.

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