Heritage Investment Group Inc. Grows Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Heritage Investment Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 5.1% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 1,218 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 59 shares during the period. Heritage Investment Group Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $335,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. KPP Advisory Services LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 1.0% in the third quarter. KPP Advisory Services LLC now owns 4,261 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,172,000 after purchasing an additional 42 shares during the period. RIA Advisory Group LLC acquired a new stake in Visa during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $213,000. Maxwell Wealth Strategies Inc. boosted its position in Visa by 11.9% in the 3rd quarter. Maxwell Wealth Strategies Inc. now owns 14,362 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $4,212,000 after buying an additional 1,528 shares during the period. Natixis Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 3.1% in the third quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC now owns 2,442,676 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $671,613,000 after acquiring an additional 73,356 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northeast Financial Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Visa by 10.3% during the third quarter. Northeast Financial Group Inc. now owns 8,238 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,265,000 after acquiring an additional 772 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

V traded up $1.39 during trading on Friday, reaching $309.64. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 5,106,284 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,762,525. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a current ratio of 1.28. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $287.04 and its 200-day moving average price is $275.90. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $245.60 and a 52-week high of $312.44. The company has a market capitalization of $564.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.83, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.95.

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

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s payout ratio is 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $148,687.06. This represents a 94.13 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

V has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. William Blair upgraded Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted 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. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Visa from $322.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Macquarie lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $317.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Visa presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $321.74.

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.