SFE Investment Counsel Makes New Investment in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

SFE Investment Counsel acquired a new stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor acquired 671 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $212,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Peterson Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in Visa during the third quarter worth approximately $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. purchased a new stake in Visa during the 4th quarter worth $26,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at $31,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its position in Visa by 48.5% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 98 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 32 shares during the period. Finally, Modus Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter worth about $32,000. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on V shares. Oppenheimer increased their target price on Visa from $375.00 to $390.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $360.00 to $400.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Bank of America lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $354.73.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V stock opened at $353.73 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The business has a 50 day moving average of $325.14 and a two-hundred day moving average of $298.94. The company has a market cap of $657.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.66, a PEG ratio of 2.32 and a beta of 0.97. Visa Inc. has a 52 week low of $252.70 and a 52 week high of $356.08.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data 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, analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.27 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.67%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.79%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total value of $11,801,589.57. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,789,689.82. This represents a 47.99 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 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 value of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 58,056 shares of company stock valued at $19,830,050 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.