Mason & Associates Inc Purchases 50 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Mason & Associates Inc boosted its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 2.7% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 1,895 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 50 shares during the quarter. Mason & Associates Inc’s holdings in Visa were worth $599,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of V. International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its position in shares of Visa by 45,189.4% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,683,101,000 after acquiring an additional 9,736,958 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC lifted its position in Visa by 4,412.3% during the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,119,725,000 after purchasing an additional 4,166,905 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its holdings in Visa by 4.5% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC increased its position in 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake 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 period. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Visa

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Visa Stock Performance

Visa stock opened at $317.10 on Friday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $312.94 and its 200-day moving average price is $287.85. 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 company has a market cap of $590.71 billion, a PE ratio of 32.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $321.61.

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

Visa Increases Dividend

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

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on V shares. Mizuho boosted their price objective on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday. TD Cowen raised 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. Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $331.92.

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.