Hixon Zuercher LLC Grows Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Hixon Zuercher LLC raised its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 3.6% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 1,991 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 70 shares during the quarter. Hixon Zuercher LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $547,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of V. Hilltop National Bank acquired a new position in Visa in the first quarter valued at $1,212,000. Davidson Capital Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.5% in the 1st quarter. Davidson Capital Management Inc. now owns 9,275 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,588,000 after purchasing an additional 44 shares during the period. Empirical Finance LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 4.4% in the 1st quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 45,724 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $12,761,000 after purchasing an additional 1,914 shares in the last quarter. Arjuna Capital grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.8% during the 2nd quarter. Arjuna Capital now owns 11,851 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,111,000 after purchasing an additional 96 shares during the period. Finally, Custom Index Systems LLC acquired a new stake in Visa during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $731,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $148,687.06. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have weighed in on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $290.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $317.00 price target on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, September 12th. Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $321.00 price objective (up from $318.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Macquarie upped their target price on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $321.74.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE V opened at $293.36 on Wednesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The company has a market capitalization of $534.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 0.95. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $240.97 and a twelve month high of $296.34. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $281.92 and a 200-day simple moving average of $273.97.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.33 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.18 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.80%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 21.38%.

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.