D.B. Root & Company LLC Raises Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

D.B. Root & Company LLC increased its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 8.2% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,982 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 226 shares during the quarter. D.B. Root & Company LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $942,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of V. International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 45,189.4% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,683,101,000 after purchasing an additional 9,736,958 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC boosted its position in Visa by 4,412.3% during the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,119,725,000 after purchasing an additional 4,166,905 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake 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 acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC increased 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 valued at $15,702,901,000 after acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently commented on the company. Susquehanna increased their price objective on Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 11th. Robert W. Baird raised their price objective on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Oppenheimer upped their target price on Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Macquarie raised their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $334.58.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE V opened at $330.20 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $314.95 and its 200 day simple moving average is $290.42. 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 has a market cap of $615.11 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.94, a P/E/G ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $331.09.

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, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.33 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a $0.59 dividend. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. 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 0.71%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.