Lafayette Investments Inc. Purchases 68 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Lafayette Investments Inc. grew its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.1% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 6,364 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 68 shares during the quarter. Lafayette Investments Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,657,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. BCK Partners Inc. bought a new position in Visa during the first quarter valued at approximately $2,717,000. Markel Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. Markel Corp now owns 961,105 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $213,144,000 after buying an additional 3,065 shares during the period. AMI Investment Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the 1st quarter worth $2,323,000. Ergoteles LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the first quarter worth $538,000. Finally, XTX Topco Ltd purchased a new stake in Visa during the first quarter valued at $1,496,000. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other 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 directly owns 4,898 shares in the company, valued at $1,365,954.24. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,150 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $273.39, for a total value of $2,228,128.50. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total value of $729,271.20. Following the transaction, 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. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 18,965 shares of company stock worth $5,256,352. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Visa Trading Down 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE V opened at $269.78 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $216.14 and a 1-year high of $290.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 1.45. The business’s 50 day moving average is $279.58 and its two-hundred day moving average is $263.12. The stock has a market capitalization of $495.45 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.04, a PEG ratio of 1.86 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.34 by $0.07. Visa had a return on equity of 50.02% and a net margin of 53.92%. The company had revenue of $8.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.55 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.18 EPS. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 9.88 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 9th were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 8th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.77%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 23.94%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on the company. Wedbush boosted their price target on Visa from $270.00 to $280.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 6th. KeyCorp lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, January 8th. Citigroup raised their target price on Visa from $296.00 to $306.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, January 18th. Finally, Raymond James upped their price target on Visa from $287.00 to $311.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $298.43.

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.