Whipplewood Advisors LLC Takes Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Whipplewood Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 2,004 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $633,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 3.3% in the 4th quarter. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC now owns 939 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $297,000 after buying an additional 30 shares during the period. Warther Private Wealth LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 1.0% in the 4th quarter. Warther Private Wealth LLC now owns 2,935 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $928,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the period. Valmark Advisers Inc. boosted its stake in Visa by 0.4% in the 4th quarter. Valmark Advisers Inc. now owns 7,251 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,292,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the period. Crescent Grove Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 2.2% in the 4th quarter. Crescent Grove Advisors LLC now owns 1,437 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $454,000 after purchasing an additional 31 shares during the period. Finally, Vicus Capital boosted its stake in Visa by 3.1% in the 4th quarter. Vicus Capital now owns 1,032 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $326,000 after purchasing an additional 31 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total transaction of $815,313.84. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,488 shares in the company, valued at $1,569,094.56. This represents a 34.19 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 55,885 shares of company stock valued at $19,161,447 in the last three months. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on V. Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on shares of Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Raymond James reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $393.00 target price (up from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

Visa Stock Up 2.1 %

Shares of V stock opened at $363.33 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $674.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.63, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97. 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 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $364.00. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $333.03 and its 200-day moving average is $305.34.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share 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%. Sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be issued a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.65%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.79%.

Visa Company 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.