Lakewood Asset Management LLC Takes $225,000 Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Lakewood Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm acquired 712 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $225,000.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Custom Index Systems LLC acquired a new stake in Visa in the third quarter valued at $731,000. Copley Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter worth about $616,000. FORA Capital LLC acquired a new stake in Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at about $7,987,000. Chicago Capital LLC grew its stake in Visa by 5.2% in the 3rd quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $111,331,000 after acquiring an additional 20,023 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nexus Investment Management ULC increased its holdings in Visa by 5,034.0% during the 3rd quarter. Nexus Investment Management ULC now owns 56,371 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,499,000 after acquiring an additional 55,273 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

V stock opened at $317.10 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $312.94 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $287.85. The company has a market cap 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 company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $252.70 and a 12-month high of $321.61.

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

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced 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. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.74%. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have issued reports on V. Macquarie upped their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Barclays upped 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. Oppenheimer raised their price target on Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Piper Sandler boosted their price target on Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Citigroup increased their price objective on Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $331.92.

Insider Buying and Selling

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 stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’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 value 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.