Lee Danner & Bass Inc. Acquires 1,620 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Lee Danner & Bass Inc. boosted its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 2.5% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 66,952 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,620 shares during the period. Visa makes up about 1.7% of Lee Danner & Bass Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 11th biggest holding. Lee Danner & Bass Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $21,160,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Ballast Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 3.8% in the fourth quarter. Ballast Advisors LLC now owns 8,043 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,542,000 after purchasing an additional 295 shares in the last quarter. Lowe Brockenbrough & Co. Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.3% during the fourth quarter. Lowe Brockenbrough & Co. Inc. now owns 39,739 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $12,559,000 after acquiring an additional 108 shares in the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 3.1% during the fourth quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 221,222 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $69,913,000 after acquiring an additional 6,710 shares in the last quarter. Holderness Investments Co. increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.9% during the fourth quarter. Holderness Investments Co. now owns 8,163 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,580,000 after acquiring an additional 380 shares in the last quarter. Finally, HUB Investment Partners LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 8.5% during the fourth quarter. HUB Investment Partners LLC now owns 42,486 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $13,427,000 after acquiring an additional 3,344 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

V has been the subject of several recent research reports. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Barclays boosted their price objective on Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, February 3rd. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Susquehanna lifted their target price on Visa from $395.00 to $410.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research report on Friday, February 21st. Finally, Bank of America lifted their target price on Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

Visa Trading Down 0.2 %

NYSE:V opened at $339.10 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $629.96 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.18, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $339.91 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $312.40. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $366.54. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12.

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

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.70%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.79%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,572 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total value of $874,480.00. Following the transaction, the general counsel now owns 11,925 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,054,500. This represents a 17.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 39,350 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.41, for a total transaction of $13,395,133.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 26,413 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,991,249.33. The trade was a 59.84 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 143,205 shares of company stock worth $48,560,961 over the last 90 days. Corporate 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.