Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Position Increased by Lifeworks Advisors LLC

Lifeworks Advisors LLC increased its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 81.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 2,138 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 961 shares during the period. Lifeworks Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $588,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. WFA Asset Management Corp raised its stake in Visa by 4.6% during the 1st quarter. WFA Asset Management Corp now owns 2,263 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $632,000 after acquiring an additional 100 shares in the last quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its stake in Visa by 46.9% during the 1st quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 50,328 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $14,046,000 after acquiring an additional 16,078 shares in the last quarter. Empowered Funds LLC raised its stake in Visa by 16.0% during the 1st quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 58,506 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $16,328,000 after acquiring an additional 8,086 shares in the last quarter. M&G Plc bought a new stake in Visa during the 1st quarter valued at $327,800,000. Finally, Towercrest Capital Management raised its stake in Visa by 2.1% during the 1st quarter. Towercrest Capital Management now owns 2,426 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $677,000 after acquiring an additional 50 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value of $2,382,309.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $148,687.06. The trade was a 94.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have weighed in on V. BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Visa from $322.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. StockNews.com raised Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, August 9th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised Visa from a “moderate buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Finally, Monness Crespi & Hardt reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $321.74.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V stock opened at $308.27 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $561.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.68, a P/E/G ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 0.95. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $245.34 and a 1-year high of $312.44. 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’s fifty day simple moving average is $285.84 and its 200-day simple moving average is $275.41.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm 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 for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.33 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be given a dividend of $0.59 per share. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.77%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.25%.

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.