Checchi Capital Advisers LLC Increases Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Checchi Capital Advisers LLC lifted its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.6% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 15,822 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 250 shares during the period. Checchi Capital Advisers LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $5,000,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in V. Armstrong Fleming & Moore Inc grew its position in Visa by 17.2% in the 4th quarter. Armstrong Fleming & Moore Inc now owns 1,184 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $374,000 after purchasing an additional 174 shares during the period. Impact Investors Inc purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter valued at about $1,734,000. Kellett Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 3.0% in the fourth quarter. Kellett Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,232 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $389,000 after purchasing an additional 36 shares during the period. Argonautica Private Wealth Management Inc. increased its stake in Visa by 3.9% in the 4th quarter. Argonautica Private Wealth Management Inc. now owns 11,017 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,482,000 after buying an additional 412 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sitrin Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of Visa by 0.8% during the fourth quarter. Sitrin Capital Management LLC now owns 24,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $7,664,000 after purchasing an additional 197 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have issued reports on the stock. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Raymond James reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $393.00 target price (up previously from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Bank of America increased their price target on Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Susquehanna raised their target price on shares of Visa from $395.00 to $410.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. Finally, Citigroup reaffirmed a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and one has 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 a consensus price target of $353.96.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V opened at $355.56 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The firm has a market cap of $660.55 billion, a PE ratio of 35.84, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $360.31. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $332.12 and a 200-day moving average price of $304.62.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. Equities research analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced 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. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.66%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In related news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the company’s 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 sale, 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 ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, 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.