969 Shares in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Bought by Meritage Portfolio Management

Meritage Portfolio Management acquired a new position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor acquired 969 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $306,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of V. International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its position in Visa by 45,189.4% during 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 acquiring an additional 9,736,958 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its position in Visa by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its position in Visa by 6.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. Finally, B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. Holding AG bought a new stake in Visa during the 3rd quarter worth $268,640,000. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have commented on V shares. Oppenheimer upped their price target on Visa from $375.00 to $390.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Jefferies Financial Group upped their price target on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price target on Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. TD Cowen upped their price target on Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Bank of America upped their price target on Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $354.73.

Visa Stock Up 0.2 %

V stock opened at $348.26 on Friday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $320.41 and its 200 day simple moving average is $295.12. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $351.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.12. The company has a market cap of $648.77 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.30 and a beta of 0.97.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 EPS for the quarter, topping 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%. On average, research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.68%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.79%.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 58,056 shares of company stock valued at $19,830,050 over the last ninety days. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by 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.