Commonwealth Equity Services LLC Buys 1,886 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Commonwealth Equity Services LLC increased its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 808,814 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,886 shares during the period. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $255,617,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. DecisionMap Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,155,000. IAG Wealth Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 25.4% in the fourth quarter. IAG Wealth Partners LLC now owns 439 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $139,000 after buying an additional 89 shares during the last quarter. Lazard Freres Gestion S.A.S. raised its stake in Visa by 6.0% during the 4th quarter. Lazard Freres Gestion S.A.S. now owns 876,972 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $277,158,000 after acquiring an additional 49,772 shares during the period. HBK Sorce Advisory LLC raised its position in shares of Visa by 1.9% during the fourth quarter. HBK Sorce Advisory LLC now owns 24,961 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $7,889,000 after buying an additional 473 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Erste Asset Management GmbH grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.0% in the fourth quarter. Erste Asset Management GmbH now owns 517,523 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $154,629,000 after purchasing an additional 9,922 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,572 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total transaction of $874,480.00. Following the sale, the general counsel now owns 11,925 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,054,500. This represents a 17.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 64,505 shares of company stock valued at $22,290,507 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently commented on V. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $383.00 price target (up from $368.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Citigroup restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, February 13th. William Blair reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-two have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of V stock opened at $333.01 on Thursday. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $366.54. The company has a market capitalization of $618.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.57, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $337.35 and a two-hundred day moving average of $310.05. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. As a group, equities analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.71%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.79%.

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.