Watts Gwilliam & Co. LLC Makes New $3.27 Million Investment in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Watts Gwilliam & Co. LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund purchased 11,873 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $3,265,000.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in V. SG Americas Securities LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% during the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,119,725,000 after acquiring an additional 4,166,905 shares during the period. National Bank of Canada FI boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 787.1% during the 1st quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,619,881 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,296,820,000 after acquiring an additional 4,099,122 shares during the period. Swedbank AB bought a new position in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter worth approximately $511,321,000. GQG Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 40.1% during the 1st quarter. GQG Partners LLC now owns 5,990,634 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,671,866,000 after acquiring an additional 1,715,686 shares during the period. Finally, Wulff Hansen & CO. boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 26,951.9% during the 2nd quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 1,587,944 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $416,788,000 after acquiring an additional 1,582,074 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts recently issued reports on V shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on Visa from $290.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 20th. Morgan Stanley restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $322.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, September 25th. Bank of America boosted their price target on Visa from $279.00 to $308.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. Citigroup reduced their price target on Visa from $321.00 to $319.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, Oppenheimer started coverage on Visa in a research note on Tuesday, October 1st. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $318.00 price target for the company. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $312.04.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value of $2,382,309.40. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $148,687.06. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.19% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of V opened at $277.48 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $228.03 and a 12-month high of $293.07. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $273.94 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $272.75. The company has a quick ratio of 1.37, a current ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The stock has a market cap of $505.65 billion, a PE ratio of 29.68, a PEG ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $2.42. The company had revenue of $8.90 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.92 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 51.94% and a net margin of 54.72%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.16 earnings per share. Analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 9.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, August 9th were given a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, August 9th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.75%. Visa’s payout ratio is 22.25%.

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.