Retirement Systems of Alabama Has $198.94 Million Stock Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Retirement Systems of Alabama lifted its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.0% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 723,538 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 7,200 shares during the quarter. Visa comprises 0.7% of Retirement Systems of Alabama’s portfolio, making the stock its 17th largest holding. Retirement Systems of Alabama’s holdings in Visa were worth $198,937,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 45,189.4% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,683,101,000 after acquiring an additional 9,736,958 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% in the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,119,725,000 after purchasing an additional 4,166,905 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Visa by 4.5% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its position in Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Visa by 7.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently commented on V. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Visa from $322.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Monness Crespi & Hardt reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Oppenheimer reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $321.00 price target (up previously from $318.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Bank of America lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $308.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $324.74.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:V opened at $316.22 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $317.42. The stock has a market capitalization of $589.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $298.56 and its 200 day simple moving average is $280.71.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The firm’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.33 EPS. As a group, research analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.75%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.25%.

Insider Activity at Visa

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by company 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.