Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Shares Bought by Grove Bank & Trust

Grove Bank & Trust raised its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 4.1% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 18,415 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 726 shares during the period. Grove Bank & Trust’s holdings in Visa were worth $5,820,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. State Street Corp boosted its stake in Visa by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 6.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,601,135,000 after purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 2.4% in the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after acquiring an additional 345,829 shares during the period. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,783,857,000 after acquiring an additional 312,286 shares during the period. 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 the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $319.97 on Tuesday. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $321.61. The company has a market cap of $596.06 billion, a PE ratio of 32.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $313.41 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $288.73.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its 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. 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 analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.33 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.74%. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

V has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on shares of Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price target on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Jefferies Financial Group increased their target price on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Mizuho increased 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. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $331.92.

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.