Stillwater Capital Advisors LLC Acquires 754 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Stillwater Capital Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.2% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 61,336 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 754 shares during the period. Visa comprises about 2.4% of Stillwater Capital Advisors LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 15th biggest position. Stillwater Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $19,385,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in V. Custom Index Systems LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter worth about $731,000. Copley Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of Visa in the third quarter valued at about $616,000. FORA Capital LLC bought a new position in shares of Visa in the third quarter worth about $7,987,000. Chicago Capital LLC lifted its holdings in Visa by 5.2% during the 3rd quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $111,331,000 after buying an additional 20,023 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nexus Investment Management ULC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 5,034.0% during the third 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 during the period. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

V has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Oppenheimer lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Finally, Seaport Res Ptn upgraded Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Visa currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $331.92.

Insider Activity

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Trading Up 0.9 %

Shares of V stock opened at $319.97 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $596.06 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.88, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $321.61. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $313.41 and a 200 day simple moving average of $288.73.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results 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. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.33 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.74%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.25%.

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.