Wescott Financial Advisory Group LLC Acquires New Position in Visa Inc. $V

Wescott Financial Advisory Group LLC bought a new position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor bought 620 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $220,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Semus Wealth Partners LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 0.8% in the 1st quarter. Semus Wealth Partners LLC now owns 3,449 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,209,000 after acquiring an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. BankPlus Wealth Management LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 0.9% during the 2nd quarter. BankPlus Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,338 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,185,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Transcendent Capital Group LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.9% in the 2nd quarter. Transcendent Capital Group LLC now owns 1,013 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $360,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. Valued Retirements Inc. raised its stake in shares of Visa by 4.3% in the first quarter. Valued Retirements Inc. now owns 728 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $255,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Interchange Capital Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 0.5% in the second quarter. Interchange Capital Partners LLC now owns 6,413 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,276,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently commented on V shares. Robert W. Baird set a $425.00 price objective on Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Morgan Stanley set a $398.00 price target on shares of Visa and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Raymond James Financial restated an “outperform” rating and set a $408.00 price objective (up previously from $398.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. Finally, Erste Group Bank cut shares of Visa from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, September 22nd. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seventeen have given a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $400.00.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Lloyd Carney sold 900 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $336.48, for a total value of $302,832.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 2,468 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $830,432.64. This trade represents a 26.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $341.00, for a total value of $3,575,385.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 537 shares in the company, valued at approximately $183,117. The trade was a 95.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 21,870 shares of company stock worth $7,467,233. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Visa Stock Performance

V opened at $325.64 on Tuesday. The company’s 50 day moving average is $341.83 and its 200 day moving average is $348.59. The company has a current ratio of 1.08, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The company has a market cap of $593.24 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.89, a PEG ratio of 2.00 and a beta of 0.87. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $299.00 and a 12-month high of $375.51.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 28th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.97 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $10.72 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.60 billion. Visa had a net margin of 50.15% and a return on equity of 60.31%. The firm’s revenue was up 11.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.71 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 12th will be issued a $0.67 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.59. Visa’s payout ratio is 26.25%.

About Visa

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.