Park Avenue Securities LLC Increases Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Park Avenue Securities LLC grew its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 12.1% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 84,181 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 9,053 shares during the period. Park Avenue Securities LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $26,605,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Custom Index Systems LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter worth $731,000. Copley Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in Visa during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $616,000. FORA Capital LLC purchased a new position in Visa in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $7,987,000. Chicago Capital LLC grew its position in Visa by 5.2% in the third quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $111,331,000 after acquiring an additional 20,023 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nexus Investment Management ULC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 5,034.0% during the third quarter. Nexus Investment Management ULC now owns 56,371 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,499,000 after purchasing an additional 55,273 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

V has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Susquehanna lifted their price target on Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 11th. Finally, Monness Crespi & Hardt reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $331.92.

Visa Stock Up 2.4 %

Shares of NYSE:V opened at $316.45 on Thursday. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $321.61. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $312.76 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $287.65. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. The firm has a market cap of $589.51 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.52, a PEG ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.33 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.75%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.25%.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Visa 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.