Janney Montgomery Scott LLC Has $273.56 Million Holdings in Visa Inc. $V

Janney Montgomery Scott LLC lessened its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 5.5% during the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 770,484 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 44,619 shares during the quarter. Visa makes up 0.7% of Janney Montgomery Scott LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 22nd biggest position. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $273,561,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Lakeridge Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 5.7% during the first quarter. Lakeridge Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,507 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $528,000 after buying an additional 81 shares during the period. Fjarde AP Fonden Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund boosted its position in shares of Visa by 14.5% during the first quarter. Fjarde AP Fonden Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund now owns 455,183 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $159,523,000 after buying an additional 57,800 shares during the period. Iron Gate Global Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 5.9% during the first quarter. Iron Gate Global Advisors LLC now owns 62,890 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $22,040,000 after buying an additional 3,484 shares during the period. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 7.2% during the first quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 14,277,146 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,003,569,000 after buying an additional 955,392 shares during the period. Finally, Yeomans Consulting Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Visa by 2.9% during the first quarter. Yeomans Consulting Group Inc. now owns 1,027 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $360,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Visa Stock Performance

V opened at $348.21 on Thursday. 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 business’s 50-day simple moving average is $344.09 and its 200 day simple moving average is $346.52. The firm has a market capitalization of $638.20 billion, a PE ratio of 34.01, a PEG ratio of 2.27 and a beta of 0.90. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $273.24 and a 52-week high of $375.51.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data 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. The firm had revenue of $10.17 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.82 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 58.93% and a net margin of 52.16%.The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 14.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.42 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, August 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, August 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.7%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.05%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Erste Group Bank cut Visa from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, September 22nd. Mizuho upgraded Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $359.00 to $425.00 in a report on Thursday, June 5th. UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $415.00 target price (up previously from $405.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, July 30th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on Visa from $386.00 to $402.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 30th. Finally, Macquarie upped their target price on Visa from $380.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $385.96.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other Visa news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,027 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $344.02, for a total value of $697,328.54. Following the sale, the general counsel owned 11,925 shares in the company, valued at $4,102,438.50. This represents a 14.53% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 0.13% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.