Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc. Buys 983 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc. boosted its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 44.9% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 3,173 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 983 shares during the quarter. Thurston Springer Miller Herd & Titak Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,004,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Custom Index Systems LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at $731,000. Copley Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in Visa in the third quarter valued at about $616,000. FORA Capital LLC acquired a new position in Visa in the third quarter valued at about $7,987,000. Chicago Capital LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 5.2% in the third quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $111,331,000 after acquiring an additional 20,023 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nexus Investment Management ULC raised its position in shares of Visa by 5,034.0% during the third quarter. Nexus Investment Management ULC now owns 56,371 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,499,000 after purchasing an additional 55,273 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently issued reports on V shares. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price target on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Visa currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $331.92.

Visa Stock Up 2.4 %

V opened at $316.45 on Thursday. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $312.76 and its 200 day simple moving average is $287.65. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $252.70 and a 1-year high of $321.61. The stock has a market cap of $589.51 billion, a PE ratio of 32.52, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.33 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders 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 dividend yield of 0.75%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 24.25%.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.