Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. Has $19.92 Million Stock Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. grew its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 3.2% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 72,449 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,250 shares during the quarter. Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $19,920,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Hilltop National Bank acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter worth approximately $1,212,000. Absolute Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter worth approximately $404,000. Davidson Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.5% during the 1st quarter. Davidson Capital Management Inc. now owns 9,275 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,588,000 after acquiring an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. Empirical Finance LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.4% during the 1st quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 45,724 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $12,761,000 after acquiring an additional 1,914 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Arjuna Capital increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.8% during the 2nd quarter. Arjuna Capital now owns 11,851 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,111,000 after acquiring an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on the company. BNP Paribas raised Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 target price on the stock in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Monness Crespi & Hardt reaffirmed a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Susquehanna upped their price objective on Visa from $326.00 to $339.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a report on Wednesday. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, William Blair raised Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $320.07.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value of $2,382,309.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $148,687.06. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Visa Trading Up 2.9 %

Shares of V stock opened at $290.16 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $530.68 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.42, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 0.96. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $280.09 and a 200-day moving average of $273.38. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $232.99 and a 1-year high of $295.78.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 51.94% and a net margin of 54.72%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.33 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 9.92 earnings per share for the current year.

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.