LVW Advisors LLC Increases Stake in Visa Inc. $V

LVW Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 6.0% during the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 21,143 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,193 shares during the period. Visa makes up about 0.8% of LVW Advisors LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 22nd biggest holding. LVW Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $7,507,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter valued at about $3,518,533,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.1% during the 1st 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 during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 17.7% during the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 10,979,720 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,847,953,000 after acquiring an additional 1,651,954 shares during the last quarter. MUFG Securities EMEA plc purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter valued at about $373,240,000. Finally, UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 7.2% during the 1st quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC now owns 14,277,146 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,003,569,000 after acquiring an additional 955,392 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Visa news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,027 shares of the firm’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 transaction of $697,328.54. Following the sale, the general counsel owned 11,925 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,102,438.50. This trade represents a 14.53% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on V shares. Erste Group Bank downgraded shares of Visa from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, September 22nd. Mizuho raised shares of Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price target for the company from $359.00 to $425.00 in a report on Thursday, June 5th. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of Visa from $386.00 to $402.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 30th. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $408.00 price objective (up previously from $396.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Finally, Oppenheimer raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $390.00 to $391.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 2nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $385.96.

Visa Stock Performance

V opened at $340.27 on Tuesday. Visa Inc. has a 12-month low of $273.20 and a 12-month high of $375.51. The company has a market cap of $623.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.23, a PEG ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 0.92. The company’s 50 day moving average is $344.44 and its 200 day moving average is $346.54. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, July 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.85 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 52.16% and a return on equity of 58.93%. The company had revenue of $10.17 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.82 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.42 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 14.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, August 12th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, August 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.7%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.05%.

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.