Bleakley Financial Group LLC Raises Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Bleakley Financial Group LLC increased its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 7.8% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 43,806 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 3,182 shares during the quarter. Bleakley Financial Group LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $11,405,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. Hibernia Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. Altshuler Shaham Ltd acquired a new position in Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. Nalls Sherbakoff Group LLC raised its stake in Visa by 545.5% in the 3rd quarter. Nalls Sherbakoff Group LLC now owns 142 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $33,000 after purchasing an additional 120 shares during the last quarter. Valued Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Visa in the 4th quarter valued at about $37,000. Finally, Financial Freedom LLC acquired a new position in Visa in the 4th quarter valued at about $32,000. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

V has been the subject of several analyst reports. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $304.00 to $319.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, January 29th. Mizuho reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $265.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, March 27th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $305.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. William Blair reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Finally, Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $296.00 to $306.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 18th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $295.82.

Visa Stock Performance

V stock opened at $274.40 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.45, a quick ratio of 1.45 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The firm has a market cap of $503.94 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.58, a P/E/G ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $216.14 and a 12-month high of $290.96. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $280.18 and its 200 day simple moving average is $261.07.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.34 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $8.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.55 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 50.02% and a net margin of 53.92%. The business’s revenue was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.18 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 9.89 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 9th were given a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 8th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.94%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total value of $9,874,729.20. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $62,716,662.40. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other Visa news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total transaction of $9,874,729.20. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at approximately $62,716,662.40. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total transaction of $729,271.20. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,898 shares in the company, valued at $1,365,954.24. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 55,511 shares of company stock valued at $15,131,081 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Visa Company 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.