Americana Partners LLC Has $16.50 Million Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Americana Partners LLC boosted its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 25.4% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 52,207 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 10,573 shares during the period. Americana Partners LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $16,500,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of V. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 3.3% in the 4th quarter. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC now owns 939 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $297,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. Warther Private Wealth LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 1.0% in the 4th quarter. Warther Private Wealth LLC now owns 2,935 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $928,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. Valmark Advisers Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 0.4% in the 4th quarter. Valmark Advisers Inc. now owns 7,251 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,292,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. Crescent Grove Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 2.2% in the 4th quarter. Crescent Grove Advisors LLC now owns 1,437 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $454,000 after purchasing an additional 31 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vicus Capital boosted its position in Visa by 3.1% during the 4th quarter. Vicus Capital now owns 1,032 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $326,000 after buying an additional 31 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa 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 completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total transaction of $11,801,589.57. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 36,566 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,789,689.82. This represents a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 58,056 shares of company stock worth $19,830,050. 0.13% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

V has been the subject of several analyst reports. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Macquarie increased their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Barclays increased their price target on shares of Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, February 3rd. UBS Group increased their price target on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Raymond James reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $393.00 price target (up previously from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $354.73.

Visa Stock Down 0.5 %

Shares of Visa stock opened at $354.95 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12. The company has a 50-day moving average of $327.75 and a 200 day moving average of $301.05. The firm has a market cap of $659.42 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.78, a PEG ratio of 2.35 and a beta of 0.97. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $357.15.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a net margin of 54.27% and a return on equity of 54.79%. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 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. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.66%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.79%.

About Visa

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.