Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Shares Bought by S&CO Inc.

S&CO Inc. grew its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 26.6% in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 15,660 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 3,289 shares during the period. S&CO Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $4,305,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Capital International Investors increased its position in shares of Visa by 2.7% in the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,570,391 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,578,025,000 after buying an additional 626,618 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors increased its position in shares of Visa by 5.4% in the first quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 18,863,796 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,264,508,000 after buying an additional 968,008 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its position in shares of Visa by 2.4% in the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,833,981,000 after buying an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc increased its position in Visa by 2.2% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,783,857,000 after purchasing an additional 312,286 shares in the last quarter. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its position in Visa by 45,189.4% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,683,101,000 after purchasing an additional 9,736,958 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value of $2,382,309.40. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $148,687.06. This represents a 94.13 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

V has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $321.00 price objective (up previously from $318.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Visa from $290.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. Bank of America lifted their price objective on Visa from $279.00 to $308.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Macquarie lifted their price target on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $321.74.

Visa Stock Performance

Visa stock opened at $309.64 on Friday. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $287.04 and its 200 day moving average price is $275.95. The firm has a market capitalization of $564.26 billion, a PE ratio of 31.82, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a current ratio of 1.28. Visa Inc. has a one year low of $245.60 and a one year high of $312.44.

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

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be given a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.76%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

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.