Gamco Investors INC. ET AL Purchases 70 Shares of Visa Inc. $V

Gamco Investors INC. ET AL lifted its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 0.2% during the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 33,076 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 70 shares during the period. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL’s holdings in Visa were worth $11,592,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Samalin Investment Counsel LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 6.9% during the first quarter. Samalin Investment Counsel LLC now owns 3,041 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,066,000 after purchasing an additional 195 shares in the last quarter. FORA Capital LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the first quarter worth approximately $8,122,000. PKS Advisory Services LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 8.5% during the first quarter. PKS Advisory Services LLC now owns 2,963 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,038,000 after purchasing an additional 231 shares in the last quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP lifted its position in shares of Visa by 3.9% during the first quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 13,468 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $4,720,000 after purchasing an additional 511 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Widmann Financial Services Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the first quarter worth approximately $214,000. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,027 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $344.02, for a total value of $697,328.54. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel owned 11,925 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,102,438.50. This represents a 14.53% 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. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,630 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the sale, 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 77,127 shares of company stock valued at $28,340,553. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa Trading Up 0.7%

Shares of NYSE V opened at $351.19 on Wednesday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $347.66 and its 200 day simple moving average is $347.42. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $267.67 and a fifty-two week high of $375.51. The firm has a market capitalization of $643.65 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.30, a P/E/G ratio of 2.32 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.85 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 52.16% and a return on equity of 58.93%. The business had revenue of $10.17 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.82 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.42 earnings per share. Visa’s revenue was up 14.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, August 12th will be paid a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, August 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.05%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on V. Raymond James Financial reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, July 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on shares of Visa in a research report on Monday, June 2nd. They set a “neutral” rating on the stock. UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $415.00 target price (up from $405.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, July 30th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft started coverage on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, July 17th. They set a “buy” rating and a $410.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $386.00 to $402.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 30th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-two have assigned a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $380.84.

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.