Millstone Evans Group LLC Purchases New Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Millstone Evans Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V - Free Report) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor bought 2,489 shares of the credit-card processor's stock, valued at approximately $787,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of V. Washington Trust Bank boosted its holdings in Visa by 9.9% in the fourth quarter. Washington Trust Bank now owns 3,582 shares of the credit-card processor's stock worth $1,132,000 after acquiring an additional 324 shares in the last quarter. Wayfinding Financial LLC acquired a new stake in Visa in the 4th quarter worth approximately $616,000. One Charles Private Wealth Services LLC grew its position in Visa by 8.3% during the 4th quarter. One Charles Private Wealth Services LLC now owns 954 shares of the credit-card processor's stock worth $302,000 after purchasing an additional 73 shares during the last quarter. Lee Danner & Bass Inc. grew its position in Visa by 2.5% during the 4th quarter. Lee Danner & Bass Inc. now owns 66,952 shares of the credit-card processor's stock worth $21,160,000 after purchasing an additional 1,620 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Ballast Advisors LLC increased its stake in Visa by 3.8% during the 4th quarter. Ballast Advisors LLC now owns 8,043 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $2,542,000 after purchasing an additional 295 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Susquehanna reissued a "positive" rating on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, March 21st. William Blair reaffirmed an "outperform" rating on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Bank of America increased their price target on shares of Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $353.96.

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Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE V traded down $0.57 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $344.05. 6,184,455 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 6,702,736. The firm's fifty day moving average price is $341.94 and its 200 day moving average price is $314.21. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12. The company has a market cap of $639.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.68, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $366.54.

Visa (NYSE:V - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data 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 net margin of 54.27% and a return on equity of 54.79%. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.69%. Visa's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.79%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total value of $815,313.84. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,488 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,569,094.56. This trade represents a 34.19 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,572 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total value of $874,480.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 11,925 shares in the company, valued at $4,054,500. This trade represents a 17.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 143,205 shares of company stock worth $48,560,961 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.13% of the company's stock.

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.