Watts Gwilliam & Co. LLC Buys 667 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Watts Gwilliam & Co. LLC raised its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 5.6% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 12,540 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 667 shares during the quarter. Visa comprises approximately 0.8% of Watts Gwilliam & Co. LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 27th biggest position. Watts Gwilliam & Co. LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $3,908,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of V. Unionview LLC raised its stake in Visa by 1.5% during the third quarter. Unionview LLC now owns 2,296 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $631,000 after purchasing an additional 33 shares in the last quarter. FWG Holdings LLC increased its stake in Visa by 1.1% during the third quarter. FWG Holdings LLC now owns 3,168 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $900,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. St. Louis Trust Co lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 0.9% in the 3rd quarter. St. Louis Trust Co now owns 3,885 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,068,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Menard Financial Group LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 0.6% during the 3rd quarter. Menard Financial Group LLC now owns 6,217 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,709,000 after purchasing an additional 35 shares during the last quarter. Finally, KMG Fiduciary Partners LLC lifted its position in Visa by 0.3% in the third quarter. KMG Fiduciary Partners LLC now owns 13,933 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,831,000 after buying an additional 37 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on V shares. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Citigroup upped their price target on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Susquehanna boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. Finally, Bank of America raised their target price on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $308.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $330.85.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’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 completion of the transaction, 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 position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Trading Up 0.3 %

Visa stock opened at $312.74 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. The stock has a market cap of $582.60 billion, a PE ratio of 32.14, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $311.80 and a two-hundred day moving average of $286.63. Visa Inc. has a one year low of $252.70 and a one year high of $321.61.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.33 EPS. Visa’s revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.75%. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.25%.

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.