Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Down 3.5% After Insider Selling

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) shares traded down 3.5% on Friday after an insider sold shares in the company. The stock traded as low as $324.41 and last traded at $327.65. 3,247,189 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 55% from the average session volume of 7,159,142 shares. The stock had previously closed at $339.39.

Specifically, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.44, for a total value of $3,020,792.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 537 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $188,186.28. This represents a 94.14 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently commented on V shares. Bank of America raised their price objective on Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Raymond James reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $393.00 price objective (up previously from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Barclays increased their target price on Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. StockNews.com raised shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, March 28th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Five 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 company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $355.84.

Visa Stock Down 7.6 %

The company has a market capitalization of $582.34 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.94. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $345.02 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $317.07. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 11th were paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.75%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.79%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Howard Capital Management Group LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 0.6% in the 3rd quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC now owns 106,355 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $29,242,000 after buying an additional 610 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 5,733,284 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,576,366,000 after acquiring an additional 411,210 shares in the last quarter. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in Visa in the third quarter valued at approximately $69,000. EP Wealth Advisors LLC raised its position in Visa by 7.6% during the third quarter. EP Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 246,217 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $67,698,000 after purchasing an additional 17,347 shares in the last quarter. Finally, iA Global Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in Visa by 3.4% during the third quarter. iA Global Asset Management Inc. now owns 526,069 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $144,643,000 after purchasing an additional 17,493 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.