Trust Co. of Vermont Has $20.79 Million Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Trust Co. of Vermont boosted its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 4.4% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 65,770 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,790 shares during the period. Visa accounts for approximately 1.0% of Trust Co. of Vermont’s portfolio, making the stock its 26th biggest position. Trust Co. of Vermont’s holdings in Visa were worth $20,786,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Peterson Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in Visa during the third quarter valued at about $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Modus Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Visa in the 4th quarter worth approximately $32,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC boosted its position in 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 purchasing an additional 73 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on V. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. TD Cowen boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their price target on Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Citigroup lifted their price objective on Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, Susquehanna raised their target price on Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 11th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $331.92.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $319.97 on Monday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $313.41 and a 200 day simple moving average of $288.59. The firm has a market cap of $596.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.88, a P/E/G ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $321.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS 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 business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.33 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders 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 0.74%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s payout ratio is 24.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, 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 SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction 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. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.