Albert D Mason Inc. Takes $228,000 Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Albert D Mason Inc. bought a new position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor bought 721 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $228,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. Peterson Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Visa in the third quarter worth approximately $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. bought a new position in Visa during the 4th quarter worth approximately $26,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $31,000. Modus Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the 4th quarter valued at $32,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 101.4% during the third quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 145 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $40,000 after buying an additional 73 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have commented on V. Barclays upped their price target on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, November 4th. Citigroup raised their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Macquarie boosted their price target on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Jefferies Financial Group raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, 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 report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $331.92.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE V opened at $319.97 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $596.06 billion, a PE ratio of 32.88, a PEG ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $313.41 and its 200-day moving average price is $288.45. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $321.61.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.33 EPS. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a $0.59 dividend. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.74%. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 24.25%.

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.