Vestcor Inc Increases Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Vestcor Inc raised its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.6% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 60,289 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 962 shares during the quarter. Vestcor Inc’s holdings in Visa were worth $19,054,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in V. Riverstone Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $217,000. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 16.4% during the fourth quarter. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC now owns 9,678 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,058,000 after purchasing an additional 1,361 shares in the last quarter. Generali Investments CEE investicni spolecnost a.s. bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $10,163,000. Copley Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the third quarter valued at approximately $616,000. Finally, Calamos Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 0.6% during the fourth quarter. Calamos Wealth Management LLC now owns 77,443 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $24,475,000 after purchasing an additional 435 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total value of $11,801,589.57. Following the sale, the insider now owns 36,566 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,789,689.82. This trade represents a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 64,505 shares of company stock valued at $22,290,507. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, Barclays lifted their price objective on Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-two have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

Visa Stock Up 0.3 %

Visa stock opened at $333.01 on Thursday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $337.35 and a 200 day moving average of $310.05. Visa Inc. has a one year low of $252.70 and a one year high of $366.54. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. The stock has a market cap of $618.66 billion, a PE ratio of 33.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (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%. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.71%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 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.