Benjamin F. Edwards & Company Inc. Boosts Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Benjamin F. Edwards & Company Inc. grew its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 38.1% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 49,731 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 13,728 shares during the period. Benjamin F. Edwards & Company Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $12,948,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Altshuler Shaham Ltd purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the third quarter valued at $25,000. O Brien Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new position in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Valued Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Visa during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $37,000. Stuart Chaussee & Associates Inc. grew its stake in Visa by 66.2% during the fourth quarter. Stuart Chaussee & Associates Inc. now owns 236 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $61,000 after buying an additional 94 shares during the period. Finally, Macroview Investment Management LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 1,019.2% in the third quarter. Macroview Investment Management LLC now owns 291 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $67,000 after acquiring an additional 265 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

V has been the topic of several analyst reports. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Visa from $300.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 6th. Royal Bank of Canada upped their target price on shares of Visa from $309.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 24th. Wedbush lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $280.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 24th. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $297.00 to $299.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. Finally, Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on Visa from $314.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 17th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $303.00.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In related news, Director Lloyd Carney sold 909 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $275.55, for a total transaction of $250,474.95. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 2,591 shares in the company, valued at $713,950.05. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, Director Lloyd Carney sold 909 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $275.55, for a total value of $250,474.95. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 2,591 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $713,950.05. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,365,954.24. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 11,724 shares of company stock worth $3,278,698. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Visa Stock Up 0.3 %

NYSE V traded up $0.88 during trading on Friday, hitting $268.49. 3,810,049 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 5,903,757. The company has a current ratio of 1.40, a quick ratio of 1.40 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The company has a market capitalization of $493.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.00, a PEG ratio of 1.83 and a beta of 0.95. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $278.47 and a 200 day simple moving average of $265.22. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $216.14 and a 12 month high of $290.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.51 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.43 by $0.08. The business had revenue of $8.78 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.62 billion. Visa had a net margin of 53.87% and a return on equity of 51.23%. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 9.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.09 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 9.93 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, May 17th will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.77%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 16th. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 23.24%.

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.