Sterling Investment Management LLC Purchases 63 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Sterling Investment Management LLC grew its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.3% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 5,070 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 63 shares during the quarter. Sterling Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,320,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. BlackRock Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.5% in the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 126,912,205 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $30,139,110,000 after purchasing an additional 3,070,682 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.7% in the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 74,133,003 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $17,605,106,000 after purchasing an additional 1,235,891 shares during the period. 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 purchasing an additional 5,864,340 shares during the period. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in Visa by 4.7% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 50,357,747 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $11,582,785,000 after acquiring an additional 2,257,605 shares during the period. Finally, Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC boosted 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 acquiring an additional 24,483,134 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total transaction of $729,271.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,365,954.24. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total transaction of $9,874,729.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at $62,716,662.40. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total value of $729,271.20. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,365,954.24. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 47,311 shares of company stock valued at $12,832,129 over the last quarter. 0.19% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently issued reports on V. KeyCorp boosted their price objective on Visa from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, January 8th. Jefferies Financial Group upped their target price on Visa from $280.00 to $295.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 12th. Mizuho upped their target price on Visa from $243.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 18th. Redburn Atlantic reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $307.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, BMO Capital Markets started coverage on Visa in a research report on Tuesday, December 5th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $280.00 price target on the stock. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $295.82.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:V traded down $2.19 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $278.41. The company had a trading volume of 1,548,981 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,585,597. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $216.14 and a twelve month high of $290.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 1.45. The stock has a market cap of $511.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.96. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $278.54 and its 200-day simple moving average is $258.27.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.34 by $0.07. The company had revenue of $8.63 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.55 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 50.02% and a net margin of 53.92%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.18 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 9.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 9th were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 8th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.75%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.94%.

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.