Ballast Inc. Has $1.28 Million Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Ballast Inc. raised its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 38.7% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 4,050 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,129 shares during the quarter. Ballast Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $1,280,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of V. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter valued at $26,000. Peterson Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter valued at $26,000. Modus Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter valued at $32,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter valued at $31,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 101.4% during the 3rd quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 145 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $40,000 after acquiring an additional 73 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Up 0.9 %

V stock opened at $319.97 on Tuesday. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $313.41 and its 200-day moving average is $288.73. The firm has a market capitalization of $596.06 billion, a PE ratio of 32.88, a P/E/G ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month 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.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 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 return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.33 earnings per share. Sell-side 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. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. 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 yield of 0.74%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction 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 completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction 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. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Citigroup raised their price objective on Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Jefferies Financial Group raised their target price on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Barclays raised their target price on Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, November 4th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Visa 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.