Councilmark Asset Management LLC Purchases New Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Councilmark Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm purchased 697 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $220,000.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of V. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Bradley & Co. Private Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $27,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its position in shares of 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 buying an additional 32 shares in the last quarter. Modus Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Finally, Compass Planning Associates Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $32,000. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on V. StockNews.com lowered Visa from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 12th. Barclays lifted their price target on Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. Bank of America lifted their price target on Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. UBS Group lifted their price target on Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-two have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $353.96.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total transaction 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. This represents a 34.19 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,572 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total value of $874,480.00. Following the transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 11,925 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,054,500. This represents a 17.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 103,855 shares of company stock worth $35,165,827 in the last quarter. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE V opened at $334.30 on Wednesday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $338.84 and its two-hundred day moving average is $312.02. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $252.70 and a 1-year high of $366.54. The company has a market cap of $621.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.70, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. Analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.71%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.79%.

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.