Sienna Gestion Takes Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Sienna Gestion purchased a new stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund purchased 33,548 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $10,601,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of V. Peterson Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. acquired a new position in Visa in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Bradley & Co. Private Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter worth $27,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 48.5% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 98 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 32 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Modus Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at $32,000. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Down 1.5 %

V opened at $327.98 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $366.54. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $337.62 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $310.18. The stock has a market cap of $609.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.06, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.72%. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.79%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total value of $815,313.84. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,488 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,569,094.56. The trade was a 34.19 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 64,505 shares of company stock valued at $22,290,507. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Bank of America increased their price target on Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. 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. Raymond James restated an “outperform” rating and set a $393.00 price target (up from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Visa from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-two have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $353.96.

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.