Dillon & Associates Inc. Buys 82 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Dillon & Associates Inc. grew its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.1% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 117,798 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 82 shares during the period. Visa comprises approximately 5.2% of Dillon & Associates Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 3rd largest position. Dillon & Associates Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $37,224,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Visa by 4.6% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 159,405,343 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $50,378,465,000 after acquiring an additional 7,079,706 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at $1,955,403,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC grew its position in shares of Visa by 17,018.7% in the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 3,949,118 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,248,079,000 after purchasing an additional 3,926,049 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its position in Visa by 4.5% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. Finally, FMR LLC grew its position in Visa by 6.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $353.96.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other Visa news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The stock was 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,569,094.56. This trade represents a 34.19 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, 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 sale, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,789,689.82. This represents a 47.99 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 143,205 shares of company stock valued at $48,560,961 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Trading Down 0.9 %

Shares of V opened at $336.51 on Monday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $340.48 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $313.29. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $366.54. The company has a market cap of $625.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.92, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results 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%. Analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were given 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 0.70%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.79%.

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.