ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. Raises Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 6.4% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 190,604 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 11,513 shares during the period. Visa makes up 2.5% of ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 8th biggest position. ZWJ Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $60,239,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its position in Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Visa by 7.7% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its position in Visa by 2.4% during the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,833,981,000 after buying an additional 345,829 shares during the period. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc grew its stake in shares of Visa by 2.2% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after buying an additional 312,286 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The stock was 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. The trade was 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 currently owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Citigroup boosted their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Mizuho increased 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. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Robert W. Baird increased their price target on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Four 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 company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $332.81.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE V opened at $323.55 on Thursday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $313.86 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $289.47. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $325.74. The company has a market capitalization of $602.73 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.25, a P/E/G 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.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted 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. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.33 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. 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%. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 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.