Bell Bank Raises Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Bell Bank grew its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.2% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 14,401 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 167 shares during the quarter. Bell Bank’s holdings in Visa were worth $4,551,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in V. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of Visa by 4.5% in 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 acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of 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 worth $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. Holding AG bought a new position in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter worth $268,640,000. Finally, Janney Montgomery Scott LLC bought a new position in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter worth $227,342,000. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have recently commented on V. William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Susquehanna boosted their price target on Visa from $395.00 to $410.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research report on Friday. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Oppenheimer reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $353.96.

Visa Stock Down 0.6 %

Shares of V opened at $348.27 on Monday. Visa Inc. has a 52 week low of $252.70 and a 52 week high of $357.15. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The company has a market capitalization of $647.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.11, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $329.14 and its 200-day moving average price is $302.66.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.68%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.79%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa 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 sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total value of $815,313.84. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,488 shares in the company, valued at $1,569,094.56. This represents a 34.19 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 55,885 shares of company stock worth $19,161,447. 0.13% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.