Longbow Finance SA Increases Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Longbow Finance SA boosted its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 49.7% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 55,714 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 18,508 shares during the quarter. Visa accounts for 1.9% of Longbow Finance SA’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 11th largest position. Longbow Finance SA’s holdings in Visa were worth $17,608,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. Peterson Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. purchased a new position in Visa in the fourth quarter worth approximately $26,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Visa during the third quarter worth $31,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its position in Visa by 48.5% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 98 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 32 shares during the period. Finally, Modus Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa in the 4th quarter valued at $32,000. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Visa news, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total transaction of $11,801,589.57. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,789,689.82. The trade was a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total value of $815,313.84. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,488 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,569,094.56. This represents a 34.19 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 55,885 shares of company stock valued at $19,161,447. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on V. Mizuho raised their price objective on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective 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. Finally, Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $353.96.

Visa Stock Up 1.4 %

V opened at $355.56 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $360.31. The stock has a market capitalization of $660.55 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.84, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $332.12 and a 200-day simple moving average of $304.62.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.66%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.79%.

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.