St. Johns Investment Management Company LLC Raises Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

St. Johns Investment Management Company LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 5,403 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 65 shares during the period. St. Johns Investment Management Company LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,708,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in V. Peterson Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter worth $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the third quarter valued at about $31,000. Modus Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $32,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 101.4% in the third quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 145 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $40,000 after purchasing an additional 73 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa 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 $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible 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 currently owned by corporate insiders.

Visa Price Performance

Visa stock opened at $330.20 on Monday. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $331.09. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $314.95 and a 200 day moving average price of $290.59. The company has a market cap of $615.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.94, a PEG ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced 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 firm had revenue of $9.62 billion for 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 revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.33 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.71%. This is a boost 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 24.25%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts recently commented on the stock. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Robert W. Baird raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. TD Cowen raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $335.52.

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.