Costello Asset Management INC Buys 2,674 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Costello Asset Management INC grew its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 31.6% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 11,129 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 2,674 shares during the period. Visa comprises about 2.3% of Costello Asset Management INC’s holdings, making the stock its 14th largest position. Costello Asset Management INC’s holdings in Visa were worth $3,517,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of V. State Street Corp increased its holdings in Visa by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 6.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,601,135,000 after purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 1.1% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 11,597,969 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,188,862,000 after purchasing an additional 123,927 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Visa by 6.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 11,522,445 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,168,096,000 after purchasing an additional 670,590 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

V has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Bank of America boosted their price target on Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday. Barclays boosted their price target on Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday. Citigroup boosted their price target on Visa from $354.00 to $393.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Robert W. Baird boosted their price target on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $354.73.

Visa Stock Up 1.2 %

Shares of V opened at $345.92 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $644.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.87, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.30 and a beta of 0.97. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $351.25. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $317.74 and its 200-day simple moving average is $293.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.28.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued 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%. As a group, equities analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.68%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.79%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’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 value of $668,602.87. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.