Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Shares Acquired by Allen Mooney & Barnes Investment Advisors LLC

Allen Mooney & Barnes Investment Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.9% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 19,900 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 179 shares during the quarter. Allen Mooney & Barnes Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $6,289,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Visa by 4.5% during 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 during the period. FMR LLC lifted 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 worth $15,702,901,000 after acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Visa by 7.7% during 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 period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.4% in 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 purchasing an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its stake in Visa by 2.2% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,783,857,000 after buying an additional 312,286 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of V opened at $316.45 on Thursday. 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 fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $321.61. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $312.76 and a 200-day simple moving average of $287.65. The company has a market capitalization of $589.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.52, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 company had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.33 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.75%. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on 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. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have commented on V. Susquehanna raised their price target on shares of Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Barclays increased their price target on Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, November 4th. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Mizuho raised their target price on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Visa currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $331.92.

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.