Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Shares Purchased by Bank of Nova Scotia

Bank of Nova Scotia increased its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 5.0% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 426,549 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 20,389 shares during the quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia’s holdings in Visa were worth $134,884,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.6% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 159,405,343 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $50,378,465,000 after buying an additional 7,079,706 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 4.4% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 40,345,176 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $12,729,901,000 after acquiring an additional 1,689,926 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Visa in the 4th quarter worth approximately $5,171,271,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.2% during the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 12,241,003 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,868,646,000 after purchasing an additional 718,558 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Fisher Asset Management LLC grew its position in shares of Visa by 1.8% in the fourth quarter. Fisher Asset Management LLC now owns 9,758,703 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,084,141,000 after purchasing an additional 173,990 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

V has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $383.00 target price (up previously from $368.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. UBS Group upped their price target on Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, StockNews.com cut Visa from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-two have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $355.84.

Visa Trading Down 0.4 %

NYSE V opened at $311.93 on Tuesday. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $344.58 and its two-hundred day moving average is $317.46. Visa Inc. has a one year low of $252.70 and a one year high of $366.54. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. The firm has a market cap of $579.50 billion, a PE ratio of 31.44, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.94.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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%. Analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 39,350 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $327.20, for a total transaction of $12,875,320.00. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 26,413 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,642,333.60. This represents a 59.84 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, the insider now owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at $12,789,689.82. The trade was a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 143,205 shares of company stock worth $48,842,490 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.