Beacon Investment Advisory Services Inc. Purchases 111 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Beacon Investment Advisory Services Inc. increased its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 2.8% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 4,101 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 111 shares during the quarter. Beacon Investment Advisory Services Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,128,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of V. Cullinan Associates Inc. raised its stake in shares of Visa by 33.7% during the 2nd quarter. Cullinan Associates Inc. now owns 86,039 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $22,583,000 after buying an additional 21,674 shares during the last quarter. RDA Financial Network raised its position in shares of Visa by 11.7% during the 2nd quarter. RDA Financial Network now owns 17,877 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $4,692,000 after acquiring an additional 1,873 shares in the last quarter. Linden Thomas Advisory Services LLC raised its position in shares of Visa by 15.1% during the 2nd quarter. Linden Thomas Advisory Services LLC now owns 14,137 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,711,000 after acquiring an additional 1,856 shares in the last quarter. NBC Securities Inc. increased its position in Visa by 9.5% in the second quarter. NBC Securities Inc. now owns 29,681 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $7,790,000 after buying an additional 2,584 shares during the period. Finally, Greenfield Savings Bank grew its stake in shares of Visa by 3.6% in the second quarter. Greenfield Savings Bank now owns 5,020 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,318,000 after purchasing an additional 174 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on V shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Visa from $290.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 20th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded Visa from a “moderate buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $317.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $321.74.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Visa Trading Up 0.5 %

NYSE:V opened at $316.68 on Tuesday. Visa Inc. has a 52 week low of $252.14 and a 52 week high of $317.42. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $292.09 and a 200 day moving average of $278.55. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The stock has a market capitalization of $589.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.55, a PEG ratio of 2.12 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.33 EPS. Visa’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.75%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

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.