Simon Quick Advisors LLC Buys 534 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Simon Quick Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 4.9% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 11,470 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 534 shares during the period. Simon Quick Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $3,625,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. State Street Corp grew its stake 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 worth $21,064,179,000 after purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 6.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its position in shares of Visa by 2.4% during the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after buying an additional 345,829 shares during the period. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc raised its stake in Visa by 2.2% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,783,857,000 after buying an additional 312,286 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

V has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Mizuho upped their price target on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their price target on Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Macquarie increased their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $332.81.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction 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 transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE V opened at $328.18 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $611.36 billion, a PE ratio of 33.73, a PEG ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $314.14 and its 200-day moving average price is $289.71. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $328.51.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.33 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 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 issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.72%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.25%.

Visa 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.