Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Stock Holdings Lessened by Dixon Mitchell Investment Counsel Inc.

Dixon Mitchell Investment Counsel Inc. lessened its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.8% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 395,909 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 7,186 shares during the quarter. Visa makes up approximately 5.8% of Dixon Mitchell Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings, making the stock its 2nd biggest holding. Dixon Mitchell Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $125,123,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 45,189.4% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,683,101,000 after purchasing an additional 9,736,958 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC lifted its position in Visa by 4,412.3% during the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,119,725,000 after buying an additional 4,166,905 shares during the period. 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 worth $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its holdings in Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted 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 acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Citigroup upped their price target on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. TD Cowen upped their price objective on Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Piper Sandler lifted their target price on Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Robert W. Baird upped their price target on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Mizuho lifted their price objective on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $331.92.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $317.10 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $321.61. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $312.94 and its 200-day simple moving average is $287.85. The firm has a market cap of $590.71 billion, a PE ratio of 32.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. Visa’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.33 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.74%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 24.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, 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 value of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is 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.