Sierra Ocean LLC Purchases Shares of 982 Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Sierra Ocean LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 982 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $311,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Peterson Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the third quarter worth $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter worth $26,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the third quarter worth $31,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 48.5% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 98 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 32 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Modus Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter worth $32,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on V shares. TD Cowen lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $354.00 to $393.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Robert W. Baird lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $354.73.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total transaction of $815,313.84. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,488 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,569,094.56. The trade was a 34.19 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’s 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 transaction, 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. In the last three months, insiders sold 58,056 shares of company stock valued at $19,830,050. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Visa Stock Performance

Visa stock opened at $354.95 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $659.42 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.78, a P/E/G ratio of 2.35 and a beta of 0.97. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $252.70 and a 12-month 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. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $327.75 and a 200 day simple moving average of $301.05.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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%. On average, research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.66%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.79%.

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.