Compton Wealth Advisory Group LLC Has $3.67 Million Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Compton Wealth Advisory Group LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.5% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 11,605 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 57 shares during the quarter. Visa comprises about 0.9% of Compton Wealth Advisory Group LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 22nd largest holding. Compton Wealth Advisory Group LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $3,668,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of V. State Street Corp lifted its stake in 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 purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its stake in Visa by 6.1% during the third 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 lifted 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 worth $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.4% during the 2nd 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 during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its position 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 purchasing an additional 312,286 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on V. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 3rd. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Susquehanna upped 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. 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 report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Macquarie increased their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $330.85.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V traded down $2.89 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $304.82. The stock had a trading volume of 1,810,685 shares, compared to its average volume of 4,952,060. Visa Inc. has a 52 week low of $252.70 and a 52 week high of $321.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $312.14 and a 200-day moving average price of $287.04. The firm has a market cap of $567.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.33, a PEG ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The company’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.33 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. 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 0.77%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.25%.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was 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 sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was 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.

Visa Company 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.