Ritholtz Wealth Management Boosts Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Ritholtz Wealth Management increased its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.3% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 58,338 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 766 shares during the period. Ritholtz Wealth Management’s holdings in Visa were worth $18,437,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Unionview LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 1.5% during the third quarter. Unionview LLC now owns 2,296 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $631,000 after acquiring an additional 33 shares during the last quarter. Forza Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 2.9% during the 4th quarter. Forza Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,164 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $368,000 after purchasing an additional 33 shares during the period. Presilium Private Wealth LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 2.2% in the 4th quarter. Presilium Private Wealth LLC now owns 1,503 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $475,000 after purchasing an additional 33 shares during the last quarter. St. Louis Trust Co raised its position in Visa by 0.9% in the third quarter. St. Louis Trust Co now owns 3,885 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,068,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Finally, FWG Holdings LLC lifted its stake in Visa by 1.1% during the third quarter. FWG Holdings LLC now owns 3,168 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $900,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on V. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Susquehanna boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 11th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $331.92.

Visa Trading Up 0.9 %

Shares of Visa stock opened at $319.97 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $313.16 and a 200-day simple moving average of $288.06. The stock has a market cap of $596.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.88, a PEG ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $252.70 and a 12-month high of $321.61.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) 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 the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.33 earnings per share. Visa’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared 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. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.74%. 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 currently 24.25%.

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 shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available 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 completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.