Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC Buys 742,624 Shares of Visa Inc. $V

Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 32,700.3% during the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 744,895 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 742,624 shares during the period. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $264,475,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of V. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in Visa during the 1st quarter worth about $3,518,533,000. Vanguard Group Inc. grew 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 worth $56,452,949,000 after buying an additional 1,677,088 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP raised 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 buying an additional 1,651,954 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Visa by 2.5% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 43,096,802 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,253,245,000 after buying an additional 1,067,631 shares during the last quarter. Finally, MUFG Securities EMEA plc bought a new stake in Visa in the 1st quarter worth approximately $373,240,000. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Visa Stock Performance

Visa stock opened at $328.37 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.08, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The firm has a market cap of $598.20 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.16, a P/E/G ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.87. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $299.00 and a 1-year high of $375.51. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $340.25 and a 200-day moving average of $347.74.

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

Visa Increases Dividend

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

V has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Morgan Stanley set a $398.00 price target on shares of Visa and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. Robert W. Baird set a $425.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, October 8th. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded shares of Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Finally, Citigroup upgraded Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 23rd. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seventeen have assigned a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $400.00.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on 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 transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 537 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $183,117. The trade was a 95.13% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,172 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $325.93, for a total transaction of $707,919.96. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 26,413 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,608,789.09. This represents a 7.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 24,042 shares of company stock worth $8,175,152 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

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.