Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Shares Purchased by Zhang Financial LLC

Zhang Financial LLC raised its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 11.7% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 6,279 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 658 shares during the period. Zhang Financial LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,984,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Guinness Asset Management LTD lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 9.9% in the 4th quarter. Guinness Asset Management LTD now owns 141,193 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $44,620,000 after acquiring an additional 12,740 shares during the last quarter. Corundum Group Inc. lifted its stake in Visa by 42.1% during the fourth quarter. Corundum Group Inc. now owns 6,543 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,068,000 after purchasing an additional 1,937 shares in the last quarter. AMI Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Visa by 9.2% during the fourth quarter. AMI Investment Management Inc. now owns 16,104 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,090,000 after buying an additional 1,354 shares during the period. True Link Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at $208,000. Finally, UMB Bank n.a. raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.5% in the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 146,346 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $46,251,000 after buying an additional 792 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have weighed in on V. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Oppenheimer increased their target price on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Mizuho boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Citigroup increased their price objective on Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $331.92.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’s 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 sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $323.76 on Wednesday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $313.59 and its 200-day simple moving average is $289.09. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $324.58. The stock has a market capitalization of $603.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.27, a PEG ratio of 2.15 and a beta of 0.96. 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 announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.33 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current 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 issued a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.73%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

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.