Southland Equity Partners LLC Takes $213,000 Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Southland Equity Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund purchased 675 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $213,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in V. State Street Corp lifted its holdings 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 during the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of 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 worth $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.1% during the 3rd 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 worth $3,188,862,000 after acquiring an additional 123,927 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 11,522,445 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,168,096,000 after acquiring an additional 670,590 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Mizuho lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Oppenheimer boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Macquarie boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $335.52.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were 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 SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was 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. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE V opened at $330.20 on Monday. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $331.09. 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 company’s 50-day moving average is $314.95 and its 200 day moving average is $290.59. The stock has a market capitalization of $615.11 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.94, a P/E/G ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The business’s revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.33 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.71%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 24.25%.

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.