Cortland Associates Inc. MO Reduces Stake in Visa Inc. $V

Cortland Associates Inc. MO lessened its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.1% during the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 170,266 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 160 shares during the period. Visa comprises about 7.1% of Cortland Associates Inc. MO’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 2nd biggest holding. Cortland Associates Inc. MO’s holdings in Visa were worth $60,453,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in V. Yeomans Consulting Group Inc. raised its holdings 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 valued at $360,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Semus Wealth Partners LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.8% during the first quarter. Semus Wealth Partners LLC now owns 3,449 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,209,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. BankPlus Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.9% during the second quarter. BankPlus Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,338 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,185,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Wood Tarver Financial Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 11.1% during the first quarter. Wood Tarver Financial Group LLC now owns 301 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $105,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Synergy Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 5.3% during the first quarter. Synergy Investment Management LLC now owns 597 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $209,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

V has been the subject of several research reports. Raymond James Financial reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, July 30th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $386.00 to $402.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 30th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday. UBS Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $415.00 target price (up from $405.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, July 30th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft assumed coverage on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, July 17th. They set a “buy” rating and a $410.00 target price for the company. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $389.00.

Visa Stock Performance

V opened at $343.63 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $629.79 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.56, a PEG ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.90. The company has a fifty day moving average of $343.77 and a 200 day moving average of $346.97. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $275.37 and a fifty-two week high of $375.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share 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 analysts’ expectations of $9.82 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.42 earnings per share. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 14.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Shareholders 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 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.7%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.05%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,027 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $344.02, for a total value of $697,328.54. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel owned 11,925 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,102,438.50. This trade represents a 14.53% decrease in their position. 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 10,485 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 1st. The stock was 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $183,815.10. This trade represents a 95.13% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Visa Company Profile

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.