GWN Securities Inc. Takes $1.35 Million Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

GWN Securities Inc. bought a new stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor bought 4,078 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $1,346,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Peterson Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the third quarter valued at about $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Bradley & Co. Private Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $27,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 32 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Modus Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $32,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

V has been the subject of several research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. UBS Group increased their price target on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-two have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $353.96.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:V opened at $331.72 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $337.96 and a 200 day moving average of $310.90. The stock has a market cap of $616.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.44, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $366.54. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (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%. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,572 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total value of $874,480.00. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 11,925 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,054,500. The trade was a 17.74 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s 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 sold a total of 103,855 shares of company stock worth $35,165,827 over the last three months. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.