Washington Trust Bank Acquires 37 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Washington Trust Bank grew its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.1% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 3,258 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 37 shares during the quarter. Washington Trust Bank’s holdings in Visa were worth $896,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of V. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in Visa by 45,189.4% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,683,101,000 after buying an additional 9,736,958 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its position in Visa by 4,412.3% during the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,119,725,000 after purchasing an additional 4,166,905 shares during the last quarter. National Bank of Canada FI increased its position in Visa by 787.1% during the first quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,619,881 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,296,820,000 after purchasing an additional 4,099,122 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB purchased a new position in Visa during the first quarter worth about $511,321,000. Finally, GQG Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 40.1% in the first quarter. GQG Partners LLC now owns 5,990,634 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,671,866,000 after purchasing an additional 1,715,686 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $148,687.06. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.19% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have recently commented on V shares. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 price target for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. William Blair upgraded shares of Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 23rd. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, TD Cowen lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $321.74.

Visa Stock Performance

Visa stock opened at $305.76 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $557.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.42, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $282.69 and a 200-day moving average of $274.20. Visa Inc. has a 52 week low of $240.97 and a 52 week high of $309.00.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The business’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.33 EPS. On average, analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.18 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be given a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. 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 0.77%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 21.38%.

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.