First Bank & Trust Grows Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

First Bank & Trust increased its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 8.9% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 3,961 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 324 shares during the quarter. First Bank & Trust’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,252,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of V. Peterson Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in Visa during the third quarter worth approximately $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the 4th quarter valued at $26,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Visa during the 3rd quarter worth $31,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC lifted its position in Visa by 48.5% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 98 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 32 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Modus Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at $32,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

V has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Barclays lifted their price target on Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, February 3rd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, February 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Susquehanna upped their price target on shares of Visa from $395.00 to $410.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research report on Friday. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE V opened at $348.27 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. Visa Inc. has a one year low of $252.70 and a one year high of $357.15. The firm has a market capitalization of $647.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.11, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97. The company’s fifty day moving average is $329.14 and its two-hundred day moving average is $302.34.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 EPS for the quarter, beating 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%. Analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.79%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total transaction of $11,801,589.57. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,789,689.82. This trade represents a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 55,885 shares of company stock worth $19,161,447 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.