D.A. Davidson & CO. Buys 2,068 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

D.A. Davidson & CO. raised its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.6% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 351,371 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 2,068 shares during the period. Visa comprises about 0.8% of D.A. Davidson & CO.’s portfolio, making the stock its 21st biggest position. D.A. Davidson & CO.’s holdings in Visa were worth $96,609,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in V. FMR LLC increased its position in shares of 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 during the period. Qsemble Capital Management LP raised its position in shares of Visa by 31.1% in the 3rd quarter. Qsemble Capital Management LP now owns 20,379 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,603,000 after acquiring an additional 4,829 shares in the last quarter. Acorn Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at about $749,000. Associated Banc Corp boosted its position in shares of Visa by 2.9% during the 3rd quarter. Associated Banc Corp now owns 13,573 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,732,000 after purchasing an additional 381 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Horizon Kinetics Asset Management LLC grew its stake in Visa by 4.6% during the third quarter. Horizon Kinetics Asset Management LLC now owns 4,539 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,248,000 after purchasing an additional 200 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have issued reports on V. Robert W. Baird increased their price target on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating and set a $317.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Monness Crespi & Hardt reaffirmed a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group increased their price target on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $321.74.

Visa Stock Up 0.9 %

V stock opened at $312.80 on Tuesday. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $251.61 and a 1-year high of $313.66. The stock has a market cap of $582.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.15, a P/E/G ratio of 2.08 and a beta of 0.95. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $289.96 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $277.58. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55.

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

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.75%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value of $2,382,309.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $148,687.06. This trade represents a 94.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.