Lafayette Investments Inc. Boosts Stake in Visa Inc. $V

Lafayette Investments Inc. raised its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 2.6% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 8,184 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 205 shares during the period. Lafayette Investments Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $2,906,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Visa by 1.1% in 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 buying an additional 1,677,088 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp increased its stake in Visa by 4.0% in the 1st quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 18,987,013 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,654,189,000 after buying an additional 726,299 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM A Distinct Business Unit of UBS Asset Management Americas LLC increased its stake in Visa by 7.2% in 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 buying an additional 955,392 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Visa by 3.5% in the 1st quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 12,675,220 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $4,442,157,000 after buying an additional 434,217 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP increased its stake in Visa by 17.7% in 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 buying an additional 1,651,954 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have commented on the stock. Robert W. Baird set a $410.00 price objective on shares of Visa and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, October 6th. Macquarie lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $380.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft initiated coverage on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, July 17th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $410.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Barclays reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $408.00 price target (up previously from $396.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have issued a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $392.75.

Visa Stock Up 0.1%

Visa stock opened at $345.82 on Friday. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $280.78 and a 1-year high of $375.51. The firm has a market capitalization of $633.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.77, a P/E/G ratio of 2.04 and a beta of 0.90. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $344.73 and a 200 day simple moving average of $347.33.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 business had revenue of $10.17 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.82 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.42 EPS. 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 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, August 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, August 12th. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 23.05%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $342.30, for a total value of $3,589,015.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 537 shares in the company, valued at approximately $183,815.10. The trade was a 95.13% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,027 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the general counsel owned 11,925 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,102,438.50. This trade represents a 14.53% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.