Saxon Interests Inc. Makes New $519,000 Investment in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Saxon Interests Inc. bought a new stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 1,992 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $519,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Hibernia Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new stake in Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. Altshuler Shaham Ltd bought a new stake in Visa in the third quarter worth $25,000. West Tower Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the 2nd quarter valued at about $30,000. Financial Freedom LLC acquired a new position in Visa during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Finally, Nalls Sherbakoff Group LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 545.5% in the 3rd quarter. Nalls Sherbakoff Group LLC now owns 142 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $33,000 after acquiring an additional 120 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have weighed in on the stock. KeyCorp increased their price target on shares of Visa from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, January 8th. Mizuho reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $265.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday. Wedbush lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $270.00 to $280.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Susquehanna increased their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. Finally, Barclays upped their price objective on Visa from $304.00 to $319.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, January 29th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $295.82.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE V traded up $0.06 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $279.08. 5,844,358 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 6,182,342. The firm has a market capitalization of $512.53 billion, a PE ratio of 32.08, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.93 and a beta of 0.96. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $279.11 and its 200 day moving average price is $258.66. Visa Inc. has a 12 month low of $216.14 and a 12 month high of $290.96. The company has a quick ratio of 1.45, a current ratio of 1.45 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.34 by $0.07. The company had revenue of $8.63 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.55 billion. Visa had a net margin of 53.92% and a return on equity of 50.02%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.18 earnings per share. As a group, analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 9.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 9th were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.75%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 8th. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 23.94%.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total transaction of $9,874,729.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at $62,716,662.40. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total value of $729,271.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,898 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,365,954.24. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total transaction of $9,874,729.20. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at $62,716,662.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 47,311 shares of company stock worth $12,832,129. Insiders own 0.19% 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.