Lakewood Asset Management LLC Makes New $225,000 Investment in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Lakewood Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm bought 712 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $225,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in V. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its stake in Visa by 45,189.4% during 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 buying an additional 9,736,958 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC grew its position in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% in the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,119,725,000 after acquiring an additional 4,166,905 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of Visa by 6.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of 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 in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have commented on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday. Barclays lifted their target price on Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, November 4th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada increased their price target on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research 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 assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $331.92.

Visa Trading Up 0.3 %

Visa stock opened at $317.10 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $252.70 and a 12-month high of $321.61. The stock has a market capitalization of $590.71 billion, a PE ratio of 32.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $312.94 and a 200-day simple moving average of $287.85. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.33 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.74%. Visa’s payout ratio is 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’s 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 $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.