Visa Inc. $V Shares Bought by AQR Capital Management LLC

AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.8% during the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,241,348 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after buying an additional 21,401 shares during the quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $438,196,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Precedent Wealth Partners LLC lifted its holdings in Visa by 7.5% during the 2nd quarter. Precedent Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,588 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $564,000 after buying an additional 111 shares in the last quarter. Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 5.9% in the 2nd quarter. Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors Inc. now owns 95,150 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $33,783,000 after purchasing an additional 5,295 shares in the last quarter. Consilium Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the 2nd quarter valued at $862,000. Iron Gate Global Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 5.9% during the 1st quarter. Iron Gate Global Advisors LLC now owns 62,890 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $22,040,000 after purchasing an additional 3,484 shares during the last quarter. Finally, NatWest Group plc grew its stake in shares of Visa by 43.8% during the second quarter. NatWest Group plc now owns 45,660 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $16,212,000 after purchasing an additional 13,912 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,172 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $325.93, for a total value 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. The trade was a 7.60% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, 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 value of $3,575,385.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 537 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $183,117. This trade represents a 95.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 24,042 shares of company stock worth $8,175,152. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have weighed in on V. Morgan Stanley set a $398.00 price target on Visa and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Evercore ISI set a $380.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday. Citigroup upgraded shares of Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 23rd. Robert W. Baird set a $425.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Finally, KeyCorp reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $405.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $402.52.

Visa Stock Performance

NYSE V opened at $347.83 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $633.65 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.07, a PEG ratio of 2.05 and a beta of 0.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 1.08 and a quick ratio of 1.08. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $299.00 and a 1-year high of $375.51. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $337.70 and a 200 day moving average price of $345.34.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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 net margin of 50.15% and a return on equity of 60.31%. The firm had revenue of $10.72 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.60 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.71 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 11.5% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 12th were given a $0.67 dividend. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.59. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Wednesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 26.25%.

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.