Sonoma Allocations LLC Acquires New Position in Visa Inc. $V

Sonoma Allocations LLC acquired a new stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor acquired 2,117 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $710,000.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Visa by 0.9% during the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 162,544,006 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $57,711,249,000 after purchasing an additional 1,461,575 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 2.5% during 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 purchasing an additional 1,067,631 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the 2nd quarter valued at about $7,034,939,000. TCI Fund Management Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Visa by 14.6% in the 2nd quarter. TCI Fund Management Ltd. now owns 19,067,558 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,769,936,000 after buying an additional 2,429,996 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in Visa by 1.1% in the second quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 12,820,885 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $4,552,057,000 after buying an additional 145,665 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have commented on V shares. Raymond James Financial reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $408.00 target price (up from $398.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. Macquarie lowered their target price on shares of Visa from $425.00 to $410.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. KeyCorp restated an “overweight” rating and set a $405.00 target price on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, October 22nd. UBS Group set a $425.00 price target on Visa and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Finally, Evercore ISI set a $380.00 target price on Visa in a report on Friday, December 12th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have issued a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $402.52.

Visa Trading Down 0.7%

Shares of Visa stock opened at $349.75 on Monday. Visa Inc. has a 1 year low of $299.00 and a 1 year high of $375.51. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $340.09 and its 200-day simple moving average is $344.13. The company has a market cap of $637.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.26, a PEG ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.81. The company has a current ratio of 1.08, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 28th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share 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 during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $10.60 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.71 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 11.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

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

Insider Activity at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 3rd. The stock was 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 represents a 95.13% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,172 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $325.93, for a total value of $707,919.96. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 26,413 shares in the company, valued at $8,608,789.09. The trade was a 7.60% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 24,042 shares of company stock worth $8,247,289 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.12% of the company’s stock.

About Visa

Visa Inc is a global payments technology company that facilitates electronic funds transfers and digital commerce by connecting consumers, merchants, financial institutions and governments. The firm operates one of the world’s largest payment networks, providing processing, authorization, clearing and settlement services for credit, debit and prepaid card transactions. Visa’s network-based model enables partner banks and other issuers to offer branded payment products while Visa focuses on the infrastructure, standards and technologies that move money securely and efficiently around the world.

Visa’s product and service portfolio includes card-based payment products for consumers and businesses, real-time push-payment capabilities, tokenization and authentication services, fraud and risk-management tools, data analytics and APIs for fintech and merchant integration.