Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Position Lifted by Atom Investors LP

Atom Investors LP grew its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.7% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 44,687 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 327 shares during the quarter. Visa makes up about 1.3% of Atom Investors LP’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 5th biggest position. Atom Investors LP’s holdings in Visa were worth $12,287,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Kestra Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter worth $1,982,000. Paradigm Capital Management LLC NV purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter worth $1,034,000. FSA Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter worth $228,000. B&L Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter worth $1,097,000. Finally, Erste Asset Management GmbH purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter worth $139,446,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

V has been the topic of several research reports. BNP Paribas raised Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Barclays increased their target price on Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, November 4th. Jefferies Financial Group increased their target price on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Citigroup increased their target price on Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, TD Cowen increased their price target on Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $321.74.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V stock opened at $315.08 on Monday. 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 one year low of $252.14 and a one year high of $316.37. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $292.09 and its 200-day simple moving average is $278.55. The stock has a market capitalization of $586.96 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.38, a PEG ratio of 2.12 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.33 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be issued a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.75%. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $148,687.06. The trade was a 94.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa 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 sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.19% of the stock is currently 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.