Berkshire Asset Management LLC PA Makes New Investment in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Berkshire Asset Management LLC PA acquired a new stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor acquired 6,044 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $1,363,000.

Other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Visa by 116,608.6% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 24,504,130 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,090,978,000 after purchasing an additional 24,483,134 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $3,067,232,000. Morgan Stanley boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 13.0% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 51,122,866 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,621,287,000 after acquiring an additional 5,864,340 shares in the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. grew its position in Visa by 130.4% during the 1st quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 7,042,098 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $680,069,000 after acquiring an additional 3,986,135 shares during the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp increased its holdings in Visa by 3.7% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 72,897,112 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $16,435,339,000 after purchasing an additional 2,572,159 shares in the last quarter. 81.35% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Visa Stock Up 0.2 %

Visa stock opened at $247.83 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $461.42 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.45, a PEG ratio of 1.86 and a beta of 0.95. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $241.36 and its 200 day simple moving average is $231.87. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.49 and a quick ratio of 1.49. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $174.60 and a fifty-two week high of $250.06.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.16 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.11 by $0.05. Visa had a net margin of 51.94% and a return on equity of 49.42%. The company had revenue of $8.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.06 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $1.98 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 8.65 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, September 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 11th were issued a $0.45 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, August 10th. This represents a $1.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.73%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 22.84%.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 24,025 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $240.00, for a total value of $5,766,000.00. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other Visa news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 22,700 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $240.21, for a total transaction of $5,452,767.00. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 232,112 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $55,755,623.52. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 24,025 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $240.00, for a total value of $5,766,000.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 65,750 shares of company stock valued at $15,845,648 over the last 90 days. 0.21% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

V has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Barclays boosted their price objective on Visa from $272.00 to $287.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, July 24th. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $270.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, August 31st. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $265.00 to $270.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 26th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on shares of Visa from $265.00 to $290.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 26th. Finally, Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $248.00 price target on shares of Visa in a report on Monday, July 24th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, one has assigned a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $273.77.

About Visa

Visa Inc operates as a payments technology company worldwide. 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, click to pay; Visa Direct, a real-time payments network; Visa B2B Connect, a multilateral B2B cross-border payments network; Visa Treasury as a Service, a cross-border consumer payments business; 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.