Virtus Investment Advisers Inc. Purchases 770 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Virtus Investment Advisers Inc. increased its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 123.8% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 1,392 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 770 shares during the period. Virtus Investment Advisers Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $383,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of 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 in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its position in Visa by 2.4% during the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after purchasing an additional 345,829 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc grew its holdings in Visa by 2.2% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after purchasing an additional 312,286 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its position in shares of Visa by 1.1% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 11,597,969 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,188,862,000 after purchasing an additional 123,927 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of V stock opened at $309.08 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $317.42. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $295.00 and its 200-day moving average is $279.46. The firm has a market capitalization of $575.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.77, a PEG ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.33 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.76%. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 24.25%.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’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 transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. 0.19% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently commented on V. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on Visa from $290.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $321.00 price target (up from $318.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $321.74.

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.