Raymond James Financial Inc. Makes New Investment in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund bought 6,187,199 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $1,955,403,000. Visa makes up approximately 0.7% of Raymond James Financial Inc.’s holdings, making the stock its 17th biggest holding.

Several other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of V. Swedbank AB lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 10.7% in the third quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,059,111 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $566,153,000 after buying an additional 199,440 shares in the last quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC raised its stake in Visa by 0.6% during the third quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC now owns 106,355 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $29,242,000 after purchasing an additional 610 shares in the last quarter. Pettinga Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Visa during the third quarter valued at $228,000. Walkner Condon Financial Advisors LLC raised its stake in Visa by 5.9% during the third quarter. Walkner Condon Financial Advisors LLC now owns 1,375 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $378,000 after purchasing an additional 77 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cozad Asset Management Inc. raised its stake in Visa by 3.0% during the third quarter. Cozad Asset Management Inc. now owns 5,432 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,494,000 after purchasing an additional 160 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on V shares. William Blair reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $383.00 price target (up previously from $368.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on shares of Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Bank of America upped their price target on shares of Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $353.96.

Visa Trading Up 0.5 %

NYSE V opened at $345.79 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $366.54. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $336.18 and its 200-day moving average price is $308.35. The stock has a market cap of $642.41 billion, a PE ratio of 34.86, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a net margin of 54.27% and a return on equity of 54.79%. Equities research analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.68%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.79%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the 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 document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,572 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total transaction of $874,480.00. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 11,925 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,054,500. The trade was a 17.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 64,505 shares of company stock worth $22,290,507 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.