Gray Private Wealth LLC Acquires New Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Gray Private Wealth LLC bought a new position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm bought 655 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $207,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Riverstone Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter worth about $217,000. Custom Index Systems LLC bought a new stake in Visa during the third quarter valued at approximately $731,000. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC grew its stake in Visa by 16.4% in the 4th quarter. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC now owns 9,678 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,058,000 after buying an additional 1,361 shares in the last quarter. Copley Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter worth $616,000. Finally, Calamos Wealth Management LLC raised its position in shares of Visa by 0.6% during the 4th quarter. Calamos Wealth Management LLC now owns 77,443 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $24,475,000 after buying an additional 435 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently issued reports on V. Barclays upped their target price on shares of Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, February 3rd. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. UBS Group boosted their target price on Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Macquarie increased their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Bank of America boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $354.73.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total value of $815,313.84. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,488 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,569,094.56. The trade was a 34.19 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’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 transaction of $668,602.87. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 58,056 shares of company stock worth $19,830,050. 0.13% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Visa Trading Up 0.9 %

NYSE:V opened at $351.26 on Tuesday. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $351.90. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $321.08 and a 200-day moving average price of $296.19. The stock has a market cap of $652.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.41, a P/E/G ratio of 2.32 and a beta of 0.97.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a net margin of 54.27% and a return on equity of 54.79%. Equities analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.27 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.67%. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.79%.

Visa 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.