Signature Wealth Management Group Makes New Investment in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Signature Wealth Management Group purchased a new position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 681 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $215,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Visa by 4.5% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 6.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 7.7% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after buying an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Visa by 6.2% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 12,241,003 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,868,646,000 after buying an additional 718,558 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 1.1% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 11,597,969 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,188,862,000 after buying an additional 123,927 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 39,350 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $327.20, for a total transaction of $12,875,320.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 26,413 shares in the company, valued at $8,642,333.60. This represents a 59.84 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total transaction of $11,801,589.57. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 36,566 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,789,689.82. This trade represents a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 103,855 shares of company stock worth $35,165,827 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have weighed in on V. UBS Group boosted their price target on Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Raymond James restated an “outperform” rating and set a $393.00 price target (up from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-two have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $353.96.

Visa Price Performance

V opened at $331.72 on Friday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $337.96 and a 200 day simple moving average of $310.90. The stock has a market cap of $616.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.44, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $366.54.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) 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%. On average, research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.71%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.79%.

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.