EP Wealth Advisors LLC Boosts Holdings in Visa Inc. $V

EP Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 13.8% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 279,884 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 33,881 shares during the quarter. EP Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $99,373,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Visa by 0.9% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 162,544,006 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $57,711,249,000 after purchasing an additional 1,461,575 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 2.5% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 43,096,802 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,253,245,000 after buying an additional 1,067,631 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the second quarter worth approximately $7,034,939,000. TCI Fund Management Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 14.6% in the second quarter. TCI Fund Management Ltd. now owns 19,067,558 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $6,769,936,000 after buying an additional 2,429,996 shares during the period. Finally, Northern Trust Corp lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 4.0% during the 1st quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 18,987,013 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $6,654,189,000 after acquiring an additional 726,299 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 537 shares in the company, valued at $183,117. This represents a 95.13% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director Lloyd Carney sold 900 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $336.48, for a total value of $302,832.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 2,468 shares in the company, valued at approximately $830,432.64. The trade was a 26.72% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 24,042 shares of company stock valued at $8,175,152. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have commented on the company. Robert W. Baird set a $425.00 price objective on Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. UBS Group set a $425.00 price target on shares of Visa and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 29th. Evercore ISI set a $380.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday. Macquarie decreased their price objective on shares of Visa from $425.00 to $410.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, October 29th. Finally, Erste Group Bank cut shares of Visa from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, September 22nd. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $402.52.

Visa Stock Up 0.6%

NYSE:V opened at $347.83 on Friday. 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 Inc. has a 1-year low of $299.00 and a 1-year high of $375.51. The company has a 50-day moving average of $337.70 and a 200 day moving average of $345.34. The firm has a market cap of $633.65 billion, a PE ratio of 34.07, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.05 and a beta of 0.82.

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

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 1st. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 12th were issued a dividend of $0.67 per share. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.59. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 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.