S&CO Inc. Has $5 Million Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

S&CO Inc. grew its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.1% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 15,835 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 175 shares during the quarter. S&CO Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $5,004,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the business. State Street Corp increased its position in Visa by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its position in Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Visa by 7.7% in the 3rd 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 buying an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its position in Visa by 6.2% in the 4th 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 buying an additional 718,558 shares in the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its position in Visa by 1.1% in the 3rd 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 buying an additional 123,927 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Visa Price Performance

Visa stock opened at $341.07 on Tuesday. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $366.54. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $336.69 and its 200 day simple moving average is $309.43. The company has a market cap of $633.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.38, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings data 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%. Sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were given 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 dividend yield of 0.69%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.79%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, March 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $363.00, for a total transaction of $3,129,060.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 537 shares in the company, valued at $194,931. This represents a 94.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,572 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total value of $874,480.00. Following the sale, the general counsel now owns 11,925 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,054,500. This represents a 17.74 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 64,505 shares of company stock worth $22,290,507 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently commented on V. Oppenheimer reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Seaport Res Ptn raised Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Raymond James reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $393.00 price objective (up from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $353.96.

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.