Guardian Investment Management Has $2.93 Million Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Guardian Investment Management lowered its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 19.6% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 9,280 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 2,260 shares during the quarter. Visa makes up about 2.0% of Guardian Investment Management’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 12th largest holding. Guardian Investment Management’s holdings in Visa were worth $2,933,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of V. LVW Advisors LLC raised its stake in Visa by 2.8% in the 4th quarter. LVW Advisors LLC now owns 19,836 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,269,000 after acquiring an additional 533 shares during the period. Ellsworth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 5.2% in the fourth quarter. Ellsworth Advisors LLC now owns 9,447 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,986,000 after purchasing an additional 464 shares during the last quarter. RoundAngle Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $1,487,000. Annex Advisory Services LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 17.6% during the 4th quarter. Annex Advisory Services LLC now owns 177,944 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $56,237,000 after buying an additional 26,625 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Client 1ST Advisory Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter worth about $633,000. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

V has been the subject of several research reports. Citigroup raised 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, January 14th. Robert W. Baird lifted their price target on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised 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. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have assigned 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.

Visa Stock Performance

NYSE V opened at $323.76 on Wednesday. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $313.59 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $289.09. The stock has a market cap of $603.12 billion, a PE ratio of 33.27, a PEG ratio of 2.15 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 Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $324.58.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.33 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.73%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.25%.

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.