Iron Gate Global Advisors LLC Acquires 3,830 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Iron Gate Global Advisors LLC lifted its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 7.1% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 57,900 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 3,830 shares during the quarter. Visa makes up about 2.5% of Iron Gate Global Advisors LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 14th largest position. Iron Gate Global Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $15,920,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. FMR LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 6.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its position 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 worth $3,833,981,000 after acquiring an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc raised its stake in 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 in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its stake in 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. raised its position in Visa by 6.2% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 11,522,445 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,168,096,000 after acquiring an additional 670,590 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have commented on V. BNP Paribas raised Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 price objective for the company in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Mizuho boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Monness Crespi & Hardt reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $317.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. Finally, StockNews.com raised Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, August 9th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $321.74.

Visa Stock Up 0.5 %

V opened at $316.68 on Tuesday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $292.09 and a 200-day moving average price of $278.55. Visa Inc. has a one year low of $252.14 and a one year high of $317.42. The firm has a market capitalization of $589.94 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.12 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.33 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.75%. 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 dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.25%.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Insiders own 0.19% 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.