Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Shares Purchased by ST Germain D J Co. Inc.

ST Germain D J Co. Inc. increased its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.4% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 28,734 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 114 shares during the quarter. ST Germain D J Co. Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $9,081,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. Peterson Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the third quarter worth approximately $26,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Visa during the 3rd quarter worth $31,000. Modus Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Visa during the 4th quarter worth $32,000. Fairway Wealth LLC acquired a new position in Visa in the second quarter valued at $39,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 101.4% in the third quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 145 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $40,000 after buying an additional 73 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

V has been the topic of a number of research reports. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $317.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Monness Crespi & Hardt reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $330.85.

Visa Price Performance

NYSE:V traded down $4.46 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $308.14. 1,840,974 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 4,677,757. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $311.80 and its 200 day simple moving average is $286.63. The company has a market cap of $574.03 billion, a PE ratio of 31.67, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $321.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. Visa’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.33 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.77%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.25%.

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.