Eastern Bank Grows Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Eastern Bank increased its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V - Free Report) by 1.9% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 334,060 shares of the credit-card processor's stock after purchasing an additional 6,070 shares during the period. Visa makes up about 2.0% of Eastern Bank's holdings, making the stock its 11th biggest position. Eastern Bank's holdings in Visa were worth $105,576,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. Peterson Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at about $26,000. Modus Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the third quarter valued at approximately $31,000. West Financial Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Visa by 101.4% during the third quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 145 shares of the credit-card processor's stock worth $40,000 after purchasing an additional 73 shares during the period. Finally, Fairway Wealth LLC bought a new position in shares of Visa in the 2nd quarter worth $39,000. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have commented on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an "outperform" rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Citigroup boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $354.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target 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. Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their target price on Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $331.92.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other 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 transaction of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company's stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE V traded up $2.32 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $309.24. 5,107,561 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 5,958,574. The company has a 50-day moving average of $312.76 and a 200-day moving average of $287.65. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $321.61. The stock has a market capitalization of $576.08 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28.

Visa (NYSE:V - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $9.49 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.33 EPS. Visa's revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a $0.59 dividend. This is a positive change from Visa's previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.25%.

About Visa

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.