Grove Bank & Trust Grows Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Grove Bank & Trust grew its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 4.1% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 18,415 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 726 shares during the quarter. Grove Bank & Trust’s holdings in Visa were worth $5,820,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Peterson Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in Visa during the third quarter valued at $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the 4th quarter worth $26,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter worth $31,000. Modus Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the 4th quarter worth $32,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 101.4% in the 3rd quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 145 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $40,000 after purchasing an additional 73 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have commented on V. Susquehanna lifted their target price on Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 11th. Robert W. Baird boosted their price target on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Seaport Res Ptn raised Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Oppenheimer boosted their price target on Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $331.92.

Visa Trading Up 0.9 %

Shares of Visa stock opened at $319.97 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $596.06 billion, a PE ratio of 32.88, a P/E/G ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick 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 200 day moving average price is $288.73. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $321.61.

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

Visa Increases Dividend

The business 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. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.74%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.