Guinness Asset Management LTD Purchases 12,740 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Guinness Asset Management LTD grew its holdings in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 9.9% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 141,193 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 12,740 shares during the quarter. Visa makes up approximately 0.8% of Guinness Asset Management LTD’s holdings, making the stock its 24th biggest position. Guinness Asset Management LTD’s holdings in Visa were worth $44,620,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in V. Corundum Group Inc. raised its holdings in Visa by 42.1% in the 4th quarter. Corundum Group Inc. now owns 6,543 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,068,000 after purchasing an additional 1,937 shares during the period. AMI Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Visa by 9.2% in the fourth quarter. AMI Investment Management Inc. now owns 16,104 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,090,000 after buying an additional 1,354 shares during the period. True Link Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter valued at about $208,000. UMB Bank n.a. grew its stake in shares of Visa by 0.5% during the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 146,346 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $46,251,000 after acquiring an additional 792 shares during the period. Finally, Strong Tower Advisory Services grew its stake in shares of Visa by 3.1% during the 4th quarter. Strong Tower Advisory Services now owns 20,865 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,594,000 after acquiring an additional 624 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Trading Up 1.3 %

NYSE V opened at $323.76 on Wednesday. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $313.59 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $289.09. Visa Inc. has a one year low of $252.70 and a one year high of $324.58. The company has a market capitalization of $603.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.15 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. Visa’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.33 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed 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 was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.73%. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.25%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have weighed in on V. Robert W. Baird lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Seaport Res Ptn raised shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. TD Cowen raised their price target on Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $331.92.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the sale, the insider now 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 transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is owned by 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.