Clare Market Investments LLC Makes New Investment in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Clare Market Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm acquired 2,839 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $897,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Peterson Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the third quarter valued at about $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Bradley & Co. Private Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $27,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 48.5% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 98 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 32 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Modus Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $32,000. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts recently commented on V shares. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Susquehanna boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $395.00 to $410.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a report on Friday, February 21st. Six investment 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 presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

Visa Price Performance

Visa stock opened at $345.79 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $366.54. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $336.18 and a 200 day moving average price of $308.92. The company has a market cap of $642.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.86, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95.

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

Visa Announces Dividend

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total value of $11,801,589.57. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,789,689.82. This represents a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were 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. Insiders sold a total of 64,505 shares of company stock worth $22,290,507 over the last ninety days. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company 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.