West Paces Advisors Inc. Buys 97 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

West Paces Advisors Inc. raised its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 3.4% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 2,981 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 97 shares during the quarter. West Paces Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $776,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of Visa by 3.7% during the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 72,897,112 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $16,435,339,000 after buying an additional 2,572,159 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley increased its stake in shares of Visa by 13.0% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 51,122,866 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,621,287,000 after buying an additional 5,864,340 shares during the period. FMR LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 4.7% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 50,357,747 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $11,582,785,000 after buying an additional 2,257,605 shares during the period. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 116,608.6% during the fourth 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 buying an additional 24,483,134 shares during the period. Finally, Northern Trust Corp grew its stake in Visa by 4.7% in the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 17,073,700 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,927,122,000 after purchasing an additional 763,505 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently weighed in on V. Mizuho reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $265.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, March 27th. William Blair reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on Visa from $290.00 to $309.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Wedbush upped their price target on Visa from $270.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Finally, Citigroup increased their target price on Visa from $296.00 to $306.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 18th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $298.43.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,200 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $280.36, for a total value of $2,298,952.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares in the company, valued at $150,833.68. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,200 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $280.36, for a total transaction of $2,298,952.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares in the company, valued at $150,833.68. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total value of $9,874,729.20. Following the sale, the insider now owns 232,112 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $62,716,662.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 55,511 shares of company stock valued at $15,131,081. 0.19% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Visa Stock Up 0.5 %

V stock opened at $272.69 on Thursday. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $216.14 and a fifty-two week high of $290.96. The business’s 50-day moving average is $279.80 and its two-hundred day moving average is $262.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.45 and a current ratio of 1.45. The company has a market cap of $500.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.38, a P/E/G ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.34 by $0.07. Visa had a return on equity of 50.02% and a net margin of 53.92%. The company had revenue of $8.63 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.55 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.18 earnings per share. Visa’s revenue was up 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 9.88 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 9th were issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 8th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 23.94%.

Visa 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.