Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC Boosts Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 15.0% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 42,000 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 5,480 shares during the quarter. Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $13,274,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of V. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Visa by 4.5% in 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 acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 6.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position 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 valued at $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Visa by 6.2% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 12,241,003 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,868,646,000 after acquiring an additional 718,558 shares in the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 1.1% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 11,597,969 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,188,862,000 after acquiring an additional 123,927 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on V. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Raymond James restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $393.00 price objective (up from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their target price on Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $353.96.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:V opened at $343.81 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $638.72 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.66, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. Visa Inc. has a one year low of $252.70 and a one year high of $366.54. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $335.63 and its 200 day simple moving average is $307.80.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.69%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total transaction of $11,801,589.57. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at $12,789,689.82. The trade was a 47.99 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 64,505 shares of company stock worth $22,290,507 in the last three months. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.