Berbice Capital Management LLC Makes New $5.60 Million Investment in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Berbice Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor bought 17,710 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $5,597,000. Visa comprises about 4.5% of Berbice Capital Management LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 9th largest holding.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 45,189.4% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,683,101,000 after purchasing an additional 9,736,958 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% during 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 purchasing an additional 4,166,905 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of Visa by 4.5% during the 3rd 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 increased 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 worth $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased 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 worth $10,601,135,000 after purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently issued reports on the company. Mizuho raised their price objective on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Susquehanna lifted their target price on Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. Robert W. Baird lifted their target price on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Finally, Citigroup lifted their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $335.52.

Visa Price Performance

V stock opened at $330.20 on Monday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $314.95 and a 200 day moving average price of $290.59. The stock has a market cap of $615.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.94, a PEG ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $331.09. 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 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 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 was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.33 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.71%. Visa’s payout ratio is 24.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa 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 transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, 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 transaction, 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is currently 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.