Aspen Wealth Strategies LLC Raises Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Aspen Wealth Strategies LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.5% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 2,669 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 39 shares during the period. Aspen Wealth Strategies LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $844,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. State Street Corp grew its stake in Visa by 4.5% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its stake in Visa by 6.1% in 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 grew its stake in Visa by 7.7% in 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. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in Visa by 6.2% in the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 12,241,003 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,868,646,000 after buying an additional 718,558 shares in the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC grew its stake in Visa by 1.1% in 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. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

V has been the subject of a number of research reports. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Citigroup reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-two have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

Visa Stock Up 0.8 %

Shares of NYSE V opened at $334.35 on Tuesday. 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 Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $366.54. The firm has a market capitalization of $621.15 billion, a PE ratio of 33.70, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $338.39 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $311.61.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 EPS for the quarter, topping 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%. Equities analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a $0.59 dividend. 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 presently 23.79%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, 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 sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,488 shares in the company, valued at $1,569,094.56. This represents a 34.19 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 103,855 shares of company stock worth $35,165,827. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate 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.