Lam Group Inc. Makes New Investment in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Lam Group Inc. bought a new position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor bought 300 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $78,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Hibernia Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the third quarter valued at about $25,000. Altshuler Shaham Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the third quarter valued at about $25,000. O Brien Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $32,000. Financial Freedom LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $32,000. Finally, Nalls Sherbakoff Group LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 545.5% in the third quarter. Nalls Sherbakoff Group LLC now owns 142 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $33,000 after buying an additional 120 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

V has been the subject of several recent research reports. Raymond James increased their price target on Visa from $287.00 to $311.00 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. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on Visa from $290.00 to $309.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. KeyCorp raised their target price on Visa from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, January 8th. Finally, Wedbush raised their target price on Visa from $270.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $296.87.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of Visa 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at $62,716,662.40. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total transaction of $729,271.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,365,954.24. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Friday, January 19th. The shares were 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 approximately $62,716,662.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 55,511 shares of company stock worth $15,131,081. 0.19% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $271.34 on Wednesday. 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 business’s fifty day simple moving average is $279.93 and its 200 day simple moving average is $262.49. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $216.14 and a 12 month high of $290.96. The firm has a market capitalization of $498.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 0.96.

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

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 9th were given a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.77%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 8th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.94%.

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.