ARS Investment Partners LLC Has $852,000 Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

ARS Investment Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 17.4% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,696 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 400 shares during the quarter. ARS Investment Partners LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $852,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. Custom Index Systems LLC bought a new position in Visa in the third quarter valued at about $731,000. Copley Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at about $616,000. Oak Ridge Investments LLC grew its position in shares of Visa by 5.9% during the 4th quarter. Oak Ridge Investments LLC now owns 75,456 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $23,847,000 after buying an additional 4,198 shares during the period. FORA Capital LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the third quarter worth approximately $7,987,000. Finally, Chicago Capital LLC lifted its holdings in Visa by 5.2% in the third quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $111,331,000 after buying an additional 20,023 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction 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 transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the transaction, 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 company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have commented on the stock. BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on shares of Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price target on Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $332.81.

Visa Stock Performance

V opened at $323.55 on Thursday. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $325.74. The firm has a market capitalization of $602.73 billion, a PE ratio of 33.25, a PEG ratio of 2.15 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $313.86 and its 200 day simple moving average is $289.47.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.33 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.73%. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.25%.

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.