Brown Financial Advisors Grows Stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Brown Financial Advisors boosted its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 28.7% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 7,309 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 1,632 shares during the quarter. Brown Financial Advisors’ holdings in Visa were worth $2,310,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 4.5% in the third 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 in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its stake in Visa by 6.1% during 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 acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings 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 valued at $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted 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 purchasing an additional 123,927 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 11,522,445 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,168,096,000 after purchasing an additional 670,590 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently commented on V. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Susquehanna lifted their price target on Visa from $395.00 to $410.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Macquarie lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on shares of Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In related news, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total value of $11,801,589.57. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,789,689.82. This trade represents a 47.99 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 55,885 shares of company stock worth $19,161,447 in the last 90 days. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Visa Stock Down 0.4 %

Shares of NYSE:V opened at $350.61 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $651.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.34, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $331.31 and its 200-day simple moving average is $304.27. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $357.15. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.67%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.79%.

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.