Meridian Financial Partners LLC Increases Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Meridian Financial Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.5% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 8,160 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 38 shares during the quarter. Visa comprises about 1.3% of Meridian Financial Partners LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 15th biggest holding. Meridian Financial Partners LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $2,196,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in V. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter worth approximately $3,895,015,000. National Bank of Canada FI boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 787.1% in the first quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,619,881 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,296,820,000 after buying an additional 4,099,122 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the first quarter worth approximately $511,321,000. GQG Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 40.1% in the first quarter. GQG Partners LLC now owns 5,990,634 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,671,866,000 after buying an additional 1,715,686 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 14,306.3% in the fourth quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado now owns 1,500,270 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $390,595,000 after buying an additional 1,489,856 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts recently issued reports on V shares. Mizuho raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $265.00 to $275.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, May 2nd. Piper Sandler decreased their target price on shares of Visa from $322.00 to $319.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Macquarie restated an “outperform” rating and set a $300.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Citigroup decreased their target price on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $319.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, Bank of America restated a “neutral” rating and set a $297.00 target price (down previously from $305.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, July 10th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-one have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $307.25.

Visa Price Performance

V traded up $0.58 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $267.38. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 5,111,080 shares, compared to its average volume of 7,227,860. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $266.41 and its 200-day moving average price is $273.57. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $227.78 and a 12 month high of $290.96. The stock has a market cap of $489.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.87, a P/E/G ratio of 1.84 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $2.42. The company had revenue of $8.90 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.92 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.72% and a return on equity of 51.94%. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.16 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 9.91 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 9th will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.78%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 9th. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.24%.

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.