D Orazio & Associates Inc. Boosts Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

D Orazio & Associates Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.9% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 5,842 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 54 shares during the period. D Orazio & Associates Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,846,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of V. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter valued at $26,000. Peterson Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in Visa during the third quarter valued at about $26,000. Modus Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $32,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Visa in the third quarter worth about $31,000. Finally, Sugar Maple Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter worth about $44,000. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total transaction of $11,801,589.57. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,789,689.82. The trade was a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 58,056 shares of company stock worth $19,830,050 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently commented on the company. Macquarie boosted their price target on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $383.00 target price (up previously from $368.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Mizuho raised their target price on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $354.73.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of V stock opened at $351.26 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $321.08 and a 200 day moving average price of $296.19. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $351.90. 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 firm has a market capitalization of $652.56 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.41, a P/E/G ratio of 2.32 and a beta of 0.97.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share 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%. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.27 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

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

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.