Arthur M. Cohen & Associates LLC Boosts Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Arthur M. Cohen & Associates LLC grew its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.8% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 9,098 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 75 shares during the period. Arthur M. Cohen & Associates LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $2,875,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its position in Visa by 45,189.4% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,683,101,000 after purchasing an additional 9,736,958 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% during the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,119,725,000 after buying an additional 4,166,905 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.5% during 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 during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd 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 during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Visa by 7.7% during the third 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 buying an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts recently issued reports on the company. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their target price on Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Monness Crespi & Hardt restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Citigroup raised their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $331.92.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE V opened at $319.97 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $313.41 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $288.45. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $321.61. The stock has a market capitalization of $596.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.88, a P/E/G ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The business’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.33 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.74%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated 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. 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.