Centaurus Financial Inc. Buys 7,734 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Centaurus Financial Inc. lifted its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 72.5% during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 18,396 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 7,734 shares during the quarter. Centaurus Financial Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $4,829,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in V. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in Visa by 0.6% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 142,202,830 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $39,685,966,000 after acquiring an additional 788,908 shares during the period. Capital International Investors lifted its holdings in Visa by 2.7% in the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,570,391 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $6,578,025,000 after purchasing an additional 626,618 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors boosted its stake in Visa by 5.4% in the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 18,863,796 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,264,508,000 after purchasing an additional 968,008 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its holdings in Visa by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,833,981,000 after buying an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc raised its position in shares of Visa by 2.2% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after buying an additional 312,286 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

V has been the subject of several research analyst reports. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $317.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. Macquarie reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $300.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com raised Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, August 9th. William Blair upgraded Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Finally, Oppenheimer began coverage on shares of Visa in a research report on Tuesday. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $318.00 price target on the stock. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $310.93.

Visa Stock Down 0.2 %

NYSE:V opened at $277.01 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.37. The firm has a market cap of $506.63 billion, a PE ratio of 30.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a 50-day moving average of $272.17 and a 200 day moving average of $273.10. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $227.78 and a 1-year high of $293.07.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.42. The company had revenue of $8.90 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.92 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 51.94% and a net margin of 54.72%. Visa’s revenue was up 9.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.16 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 9.92 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 9th were given a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.75%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 9th. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.24%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $148,687.06. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Company insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Visa Company 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.