39,766 Shares in Visa Inc. $V Bought by Westerkirk Capital Inc.

Westerkirk Capital Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the second quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor acquired 39,766 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $14,119,000. Visa makes up about 1.7% of Westerkirk Capital Inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 11th largest holding.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in V. Fjarde AP Fonden Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund increased its position in Visa by 14.5% in the first quarter. Fjarde AP Fonden Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund now owns 455,183 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $159,523,000 after buying an additional 57,800 shares during the last quarter. Precedent Wealth Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 7.5% during the 2nd quarter. Precedent Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,588 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $564,000 after acquiring an additional 111 shares during the period. Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in Visa by 5.9% in the 2nd quarter. Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors Inc. now owns 95,150 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $33,783,000 after acquiring an additional 5,295 shares during the last quarter. Consilium Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new stake in Visa in the 2nd quarter valued at about $862,000. Finally, Iron Gate Global Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Visa by 5.9% during the first quarter. Iron Gate Global Advisors LLC now owns 62,890 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $22,040,000 after purchasing an additional 3,484 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. KeyCorp reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $405.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 22nd. UBS Group set a $425.00 price objective on shares of Visa and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Macquarie dropped their target price on Visa from $425.00 to $410.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. Wells Fargo & Company raised Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Finally, Raymond James Financial reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $408.00 price objective (up from $398.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seventeen have issued a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $400.00.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, Director Lloyd Carney sold 900 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $336.48, for a total transaction of $302,832.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 2,468 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $830,432.64. This represents a 26.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $341.00, for a total transaction of $3,575,385.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 537 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $183,117. This represents a 95.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 24,042 shares of company stock worth $8,175,152. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Visa Stock Down 1.2%

Shares of NYSE V opened at $330.41 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $601.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.36, a PEG ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 0.82. Visa Inc. has a one year low of $299.00 and a one year high of $375.51. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $339.40 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $346.93. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 1.08 and a quick ratio of 1.08.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 28th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.97 by $0.01. Visa had a net margin of 50.15% and a return on equity of 60.31%. The firm had revenue of $10.72 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.60 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.71 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 11.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 1st. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 12th were given a $0.67 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, November 12th. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.59. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 26.25%.

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.