XML Financial LLC Increases Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

XML Financial LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 5.1% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 6,340 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 306 shares during the quarter. XML Financial LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $2,004,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. International Assets Investment Management LLC lifted 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 buying an additional 9,736,958 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% during the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,119,725,000 after acquiring an additional 4,166,905 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Visa by 4.5% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC boosted its position in Visa by 6.1% in the third 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 grew its stake in Visa by 7.7% in 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 purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Visa Stock Performance

Visa stock opened at $328.18 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $328.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. The stock has a market cap of $611.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 0.96. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $314.14 and its 200-day moving average price is $289.71.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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%. Visa’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.33 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share 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 paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.72%. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 24.25%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on V. Mizuho boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Bank of America boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $314.00 to $331.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Oppenheimer raised their price target on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Macquarie upped their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, 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. Four 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. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $332.81.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the 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 Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa stock in a transaction 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.