St. Louis Financial Planners Asset Management LLC Acquires Shares of 10,176 Visa Inc. $V

St. Louis Financial Planners Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) during the 2nd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund acquired 10,176 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $3,685,000. Visa accounts for 1.9% of St. Louis Financial Planners Asset Management LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 17th largest holding.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Planned Solutions Inc. grew its stake in Visa by 2.0% in the 4th quarter. Planned Solutions Inc. now owns 1,598 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $560,000 after buying an additional 31 shares during the last quarter. Frederick Financial Consultants LLC lifted its position in Visa by 2.0% during the fourth quarter. Frederick Financial Consultants LLC now owns 1,598 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $560,000 after acquiring an additional 31 shares during the last quarter. Kuhn & Co Investment Counsel boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. Kuhn & Co Investment Counsel now owns 6,096 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,138,000 after acquiring an additional 32 shares during the period. Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 20.9% during the fourth quarter. Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL now owns 185 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $65,000 after acquiring an additional 32 shares during the period. Finally, Spectrum Planning & Advisory Services Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.7% during the first quarter. Spectrum Planning & Advisory Services Inc. now owns 1,896 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $573,000 after acquiring an additional 32 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Visa

Here are the key news stories impacting Visa this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Visa agreed to acquire fraud-intelligence provider BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash. The transaction would expand Visa’s artificial-intelligence and cybersecurity capabilities, helping banks and merchants combat account takeovers, scams and other increasingly costly payment fraud. The deal also strengthens Visa’s competitive position against Mastercard in payment security. Visa vs. Mastercard: BioCatch Acquisition
• Positive Sentiment: Visa is moving stablecoin capabilities into production through Visa Direct and a partnership with Zero Hash, enabling stablecoin payouts and prefunding across eligible cards, accounts and wallets in 195 countries and territories. This could broaden Visa’s cross-border payment volume and preserve its role as digital currencies expand. Visa Stablecoin Cross-Border Payouts
• Positive Sentiment: Western Union’s Visa-branded Stablecard, initially launching in 37 markets, will let users hold and spend a dollar-backed stablecoin anywhere Visa is accepted. The rollout offers Visa additional exposure to remittances, digital wallets and cross-border transactions. Western Union Stablecard on Visa Network
• Neutral Sentiment: Industry commentary remains constructive on cross-border payment growth and strategic expansion, but warns that higher technology spending and pressure on consumer spending could weigh on margins across transaction-processing companies. Financial Transaction Stocks Outlook
• Negative Sentiment: Visa reportedly cut approximately 2,600 jobs, including 320 positions in California. Although the restructuring could improve efficiency and lower costs over time, the scale of the layoffs may raise concerns about near-term disruption, employee morale and management execution. Visa Job Cuts

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on V. UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $420.00 target price (up from $410.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, July 29th. Sanford C. Bernstein restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $450.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research note on Tuesday, June 2nd. Erste Group Bank raised Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, July 27th. Royal Bank Of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $412.00 price objective (up from $395.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, July 29th. Finally, Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $403.00 target price (up from $391.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and twenty-four have given a Buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $413.58.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $370.11 on Friday. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $344.41 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $326.79. The firm has a market capitalization of $663.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.47, a P/E/G ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 0.74. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $293.89 and a fifty-two week high of $373.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60, a current ratio of 0.99 and a quick ratio of 0.99.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 28th. The credit-card processor reported $3.32 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.23 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $11.63 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $11.40 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 67.68% and a net margin of 50.78%.Visa’s revenue was up 14.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.98 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 13.14 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, August 11th will be paid a $0.67 dividend. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.7%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, August 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 22.79%.

Visa declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase program on Tuesday, April 28th that permits the company to repurchase $20.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the credit-card processor to buy up to 3.6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are usually an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,490 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.99, for a total transaction of $3,608,455.10. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 15,174 shares in the company, valued at $5,219,704.26. This represents a 40.87% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Chris Suh sold 10,639 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $324.81, for a total value of $3,455,653.59. Following the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 9,872 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,206,524.32. This represents a 51.87% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 101,398 shares of company stock valued at $35,831,433. 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.