West Paces Advisors Inc. Boosts Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

West Paces Advisors Inc. boosted its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 3.4% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,981 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 97 shares during the period. West Paces Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $776,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Desjardins Global Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in Visa by 7.0% during the 4th quarter. Desjardins Global Asset Management Inc. now owns 15,213 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,962,000 after buying an additional 999 shares in the last quarter. Wealth Alliance grew its position in shares of Visa by 2.3% in the fourth quarter. Wealth Alliance now owns 12,221 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,182,000 after purchasing an additional 269 shares in the last quarter. Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. grew its position in shares of Visa by 4.1% in the fourth quarter. Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. now owns 86,656 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $22,561,000 after purchasing an additional 3,376 shares in the last quarter. Main Street Research LLC grew its position in shares of Visa by 20.1% in the fourth quarter. Main Street Research LLC now owns 151,597 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $39,468,000 after purchasing an additional 25,414 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Marino Stram & Associates LLC grew its position in shares of Visa by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. Marino Stram & Associates LLC now owns 3,325 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $866,000 after purchasing an additional 44 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on Visa from $290.00 to $309.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price target on Visa from $305.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. KeyCorp upped their price target on Visa from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, January 8th. Barclays increased their price objective on Visa from $304.00 to $319.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, January 29th. Finally, Susquehanna increased their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $298.43.

Insider Activity at Visa

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,200 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $280.36, for a total value of $2,298,952.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $150,833.68. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other Visa news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total transaction of $9,874,729.20. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 232,112 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $62,716,662.40. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $280.36, for a total value of $2,298,952.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $150,833.68. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 55,511 shares of company stock valued at $15,131,081 over the last quarter. 0.19% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Visa Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of NYSE V opened at $272.69 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $500.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.38, a PEG ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.45, a quick ratio of 1.45 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $216.14 and a 12-month high of $290.96. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $279.80 and its 200-day simple moving average is $262.56.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.34 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $8.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.55 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 50.02% and a net margin of 53.92%. Visa’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.18 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 9.88 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Investors of record on Friday, February 9th were issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 8th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.94%.

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.