Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Shares Purchased by Gateway Investment Advisers LLC

Gateway Investment Advisers LLC raised its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.1% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 465,535 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 580 shares during the period. Visa accounts for approximately 1.6% of Gateway Investment Advisers LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 11th largest position. Gateway Investment Advisers LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $147,128,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in V. State Street Corp raised its position in Visa by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 7.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after buying an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.4% during the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after buying an additional 345,829 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its position in Visa by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after acquiring an additional 312,286 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have weighed in on V shares. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Susquehanna lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 11th. Finally, Monness Crespi & Hardt reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $331.92.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Up 0.9 %

V stock opened at $319.97 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $313.16 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $288.06. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. The stock has a market capitalization of $596.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.88, a PEG ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a one year low of $252.70 and a one year high of $321.61.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.33 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.74%. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 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.