Northstar Advisory Group LLC Has $479,000 Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Northstar Advisory Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 47.1% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 1,515 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 485 shares during the period. Northstar Advisory Group LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $479,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in V. Custom Index Systems LLC acquired a new stake in Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at $731,000. Copley Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the third quarter valued at about $616,000. FORA Capital LLC bought a new stake in Visa during the third quarter worth about $7,987,000. Chicago Capital LLC boosted its position in Visa by 5.2% during the third quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $111,331,000 after purchasing an additional 20,023 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nexus Investment Management ULC grew its stake in Visa by 5,034.0% in 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 in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was 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 Stock Down 0.4 %

Shares of NYSE V opened at $306.59 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $571.14 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.51, a PEG ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $312.44 and its 200 day moving average is $287.32. Visa Inc. has a 52 week low of $252.70 and a 52 week high of $321.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion during 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 business’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.33 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.77%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.25%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on V shares. Mizuho increased their price objective on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Visa currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $330.85.

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.