Davis Rea LTD. Invests $6.45 Million in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Davis Rea LTD. acquired a new position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 18,410 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $6,452,000. Visa accounts for about 1.7% of Davis Rea LTD.’s portfolio, making the stock its 17th largest holding.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in V. One Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Visa by 0.5% during the 1st quarter. One Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 8,098 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,838,000 after purchasing an additional 42 shares during the last quarter. Lifeworks Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 68.0% in the first quarter. Lifeworks Advisors LLC now owns 3,875 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,358,000 after acquiring an additional 1,569 shares during the last quarter. Innova Wealth Partners raised its stake in shares of Visa by 6.0% in the first quarter. Innova Wealth Partners now owns 1,043 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $366,000 after acquiring an additional 59 shares during the last quarter. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 28.5% in the first quarter. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC now owns 12,439 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $4,359,000 after acquiring an additional 2,761 shares during the last quarter. Finally, SFE Investment Counsel raised its stake in shares of Visa by 20.7% in the first quarter. SFE Investment Counsel now owns 810 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $284,000 after acquiring an additional 139 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

V has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Evercore ISI assumed coverage on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, April 9th. They issued an “in-line” rating and a $330.00 target price for the company. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $400.00 to $410.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 27th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, May 12th. Oppenheimer boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $390.00 to $391.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 2nd. Finally, Piper Sandler upped their price target on shares of Visa from $383.00 to $384.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 30th. Five equities research 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’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $375.52.

Visa Trading Up 0.0%

Visa stock traded up $0.13 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $355.42. 680,159 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 6,557,927. The company has a quick ratio of 1.08, a current ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $375.51. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $356.62 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $344.40. The stock has a market capitalization of $655.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.76, a PEG ratio of 2.38 and a beta of 0.92.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.76 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.68 by $0.08. The company had revenue of $9.59 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.57 billion. Visa had a net margin of 52.86% and a return on equity of 56.28%. Visa’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $2.51 EPS. Analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, May 13th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.66%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, May 13th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 23.72%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,630 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Tuesday, July 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $353.82, for a total transaction of $3,053,466.60. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 537 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $190,001.34. The trade was a 94.14% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,575 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $345.58, for a total transaction of $889,868.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel directly owned 11,925 shares in the company, valued at $4,121,041.50. This trade represents a 17.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 101,108 shares of company stock valued at $36,771,200 in the last three months. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.