Ballentine Partners LLC Purchases 227 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Ballentine Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.6% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 37,323 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 227 shares during the quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $11,795,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the business. International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its stake in Visa by 45,189.4% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,683,101,000 after buying an additional 9,736,958 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% during the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,119,725,000 after purchasing an additional 4,166,905 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its stake 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 period. FMR LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd 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. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

V opened at $323.55 on Thursday. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $325.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28. The company has a market capitalization of $602.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.25, a P/E/G ratio of 2.15 and a beta of 0.96. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $313.86 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $289.47.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share 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 company had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.33 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.73%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts recently commented on V shares. Royal Bank of Canada upped their price target on shares of Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their target price on Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Finally, Macquarie raised their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $332.81.

About Visa

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.