Petredis Investment Advisors LLC Has $6.95 Million Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Petredis Investment Advisors LLC reduced its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.1% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 21,984 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 235 shares during the quarter. Visa accounts for about 0.7% of Petredis Investment Advisors LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 29th largest holding. Petredis Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $6,948,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Gradient Investments LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 22.9% in the 4th quarter. Gradient Investments LLC now owns 148,713 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $46,999,000 after purchasing an additional 27,686 shares in the last quarter. Wheelhouse Advisory Group LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.9% during the fourth quarter. Wheelhouse Advisory Group LLC now owns 766 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $242,000 after purchasing an additional 36 shares during the last quarter. Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Visa by 3.9% in the fourth quarter. Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. now owns 160,086 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $50,594,000 after buying an additional 6,036 shares during the period. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 50.7% in the 4th quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 18,937 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,985,000 after buying an additional 6,370 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Berbice Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in Visa during the 4th quarter worth approximately $5,597,000. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on V shares. Barclays raised their price target on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, November 4th. TD Cowen lifted their target price on Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price target on Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Finally, Bank of America increased their target price on shares of Visa from $314.00 to $331.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $335.52.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated 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. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:V opened at $330.20 on Monday. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $314.95 and its 200-day moving average is $290.59. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $331.09. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The firm has a market capitalization of $615.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.94, a PEG ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion for 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 business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.33 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.71%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 24.25%.

Visa 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.