Define Financial LLC Buys Shares of 747 Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Define Financial LLC purchased a new stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm purchased 747 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $236,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of V. International Assets Investment Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 45,189.4% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,683,101,000 after purchasing an additional 9,736,958 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 4,412.3% during the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,119,725,000 after buying an additional 4,166,905 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Visa by 4.5% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 7.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

NYSE:V opened at $309.24 on Wednesday. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $321.61. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $312.76 and its 200 day simple moving average is $287.65. The firm has a market capitalization of $576.08 billion, a PE ratio of 31.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.33 EPS. On average, analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.76%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on V shares. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Robert W. Baird raised their price objective on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their target price on Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Finally, Susquehanna raised their price target on Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 11th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $331.92.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.