Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. Raises Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. increased its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 4.1% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 86,656 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 3,376 shares during the quarter. Visa accounts for approximately 1.4% of Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc.’s holdings, making the stock its 25th biggest holding. Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $22,561,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Hibernia Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new position in Visa during the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. Altshuler Shaham Ltd purchased a new position in Visa during the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. O Brien Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new position in Visa during the 4th quarter valued at $32,000. Financial Freedom LLC purchased a new position in Visa during the 4th quarter valued at $32,000. Finally, Nalls Sherbakoff Group LLC increased its position in Visa by 545.5% during the 3rd quarter. Nalls Sherbakoff Group LLC now owns 142 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $33,000 after purchasing an additional 120 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have issued reports on V. KeyCorp boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, January 8th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 6th. Wedbush boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $270.00 to $280.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, January 26th. Evercore ISI boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $325.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. Finally, Susquehanna boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $326.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a report on Friday, January 26th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $298.43.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,150 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $273.39, for a total transaction of $2,228,128.50. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,150 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $273.39, for a total transaction of $2,228,128.50. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total transaction of $9,874,729.20. Following the sale, the insider now directly 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. Insiders sold 55,511 shares of company stock valued at $15,131,081 in the last quarter. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Visa Price Performance

V opened at $272.69 on Thursday. 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 stock has a market capitalization of $500.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.38, a P/E/G ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 0.96. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $279.80 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $262.56. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $216.14 and a 52-week high of $290.96.

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, beating the consensus estimate of $2.34 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $8.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.55 billion. Visa had a net margin of 53.92% and a return on equity of 50.02%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.18 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 9.88 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business 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. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 8th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 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.