O Neil Global Advisors Inc. Purchases New Shares in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

O Neil Global Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 2,506 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $792,000. Visa accounts for approximately 0.2% of O Neil Global Advisors Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 28th biggest position.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp boosted its stake in Visa by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after buying an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.1% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 11,597,969 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,188,862,000 after buying an additional 123,927 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 11,522,445 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,168,096,000 after buying an additional 670,590 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on V shares. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Mizuho upped their target price on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Oppenheimer reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

Visa Trading Down 0.6 %

Shares of Visa stock opened at $348.27 on Monday. Visa Inc. has a 52 week low of $252.70 and a 52 week high of $357.15. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $329.14 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $302.66. The stock has a market capitalization of $647.01 billion, a PE ratio of 35.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be issued a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.68%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of Visa stock in a transaction 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 sale, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,789,689.82. This trade represents a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 55,885 shares of company stock worth $19,161,447 over the last 90 days. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.