Financial Advocates Investment Management Raises Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. $V

Financial Advocates Investment Management boosted its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 107.2% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 15,107 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 7,817 shares during the quarter. Financial Advocates Investment Management’s holdings in Visa were worth $5,364,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in V. Nuveen LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the 1st quarter valued at about $3,518,533,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Visa by 1.1% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 161,082,431 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $56,452,949,000 after acquiring an additional 1,677,088 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP grew its holdings in Visa by 17.7% in the first quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 10,979,720 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,847,953,000 after purchasing an additional 1,651,954 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 2.5% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 43,096,802 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,253,245,000 after purchasing an additional 1,067,631 shares in the last quarter. Finally, MUFG Securities EMEA plc purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter valued at $373,240,000. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have commented on V shares. Morgan Stanley set a $398.00 price target on Visa and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Robert W. Baird set a $425.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. Citigroup raised shares of Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 23rd. Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Finally, KeyCorp reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $405.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, October 22nd. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seventeen have issued a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $400.00.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $341.00, for a total transaction of $3,575,385.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 537 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $183,117. This represents a 95.13% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director Lloyd Carney sold 900 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $336.48, for a total value of $302,832.00. Following the sale, the director owned 2,468 shares in the company, valued at $830,432.64. This trade represents a 26.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 24,042 shares of company stock worth $8,175,152. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V stock opened at $328.37 on Tuesday. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $340.25 and a 200-day simple moving average of $347.74. The company has a quick ratio of 1.08, a current ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The stock has a market cap of $598.20 billion, a PE ratio of 32.16, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.87. Visa Inc. has a 52-week low of $299.00 and a 52-week high of $375.51.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 28th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.97 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $10.72 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $10.60 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 60.31% and a net margin of 50.15%.Visa’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.71 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 12th will be issued a dividend of $0.67 per share. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.59. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, November 12th. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 26.25%.

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.