AlphaStar Capital Management LLC Increases Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

AlphaStar Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 11.2% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 14,241 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,439 shares during the quarter. AlphaStar Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $4,501,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its position 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 worth $2,683,101,000 after buying an additional 9,736,958 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in Visa by 4.5% in the third 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 in the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 6.1% in the third 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. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Visa by 7.7% in the third 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 during the last quarter. Finally, B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. Holding AG purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter valued at $268,640,000. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts recently issued reports on V shares. UBS Group upped their target price on Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. TD Cowen upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Oppenheimer lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $375.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Macquarie lifted their price objective 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-five have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $354.73.

Visa Trading Up 0.9 %

V stock opened at $351.26 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $351.90. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $321.08 and its 200-day simple moving average is $296.19. The firm has a market cap of $652.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.41, a PEG ratio of 2.32 and a beta of 0.97.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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, equities analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was 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 in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The shares were 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 owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at $12,789,689.82. The trade was a 47.99 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 58,056 shares of company stock worth $19,830,050. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.