Romano Brothers AND Company Grows Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Romano Brothers AND Company raised its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.4% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 8,606 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 116 shares during the quarter. Romano Brothers AND Company’s holdings in Visa were worth $2,720,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 45,189.4% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,683,101,000 after purchasing an additional 9,736,958 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% in the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,119,725,000 after purchasing an additional 4,166,905 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its holdings 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 valued at $21,064,179,000 after purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of 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 valued at $10,601,135,000 after purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa 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 transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $319.97 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $596.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.88, a P/E/G ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a 52 week low of $252.70 and a 52 week high of $321.61. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $313.41 and its two-hundred day moving average is $288.73.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.33 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.74%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.25%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on V. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Macquarie upped their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Finally, TD Cowen upped their target price on shares of Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $331.92.

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.