Sterling Financial Group Inc. Has $337,000 Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Sterling Financial Group Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 4.2% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 1,066 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 43 shares during the quarter. Sterling Financial Group Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $337,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its stake in Visa by 6.1% in 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 purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in 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. boosted its position in Visa by 2.4% in the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,833,981,000 after buying an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc grew its stake in shares of 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. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on V. Macquarie boosted their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Mizuho boosted their price target on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Citigroup raised their price target on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday. 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 stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $331.92.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of V opened at $319.97 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $596.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.88, a P/E/G ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. The business’s fifty day moving average is $313.16 and its 200 day moving average is $288.06. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $252.70 and a 12-month high of $321.61.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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 during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The business’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.33 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.74%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 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.