Granite Harbor Advisors Inc. Increases Position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Granite Harbor Advisors Inc. lifted its holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.6% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 2,143 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 33 shares during the quarter. Granite Harbor Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Visa were worth $677,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of V. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its position in shares of Visa by 45,189.4% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,683,101,000 after buying an additional 9,736,958 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of Visa by 4.5% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of Visa by 6.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in Visa by 7.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,601,135,000 after purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. Finally, B. Metzler seel. Sohn & Co. Holding AG purchased a new stake in Visa during the third quarter valued at about $268,640,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on V shares. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Mizuho raised their price objective on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Robert W. Baird raised their price objective on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. TD Cowen raised their price objective on Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Oppenheimer raised their price objective on Visa from $375.00 to $390.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $352.27.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of V opened at $342.05 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $637.19 billion, a PE ratio of 35.15, a P/E/G ratio of 2.27 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $317.74 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $293.12. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $252.70 and a 1-year high of $351.25.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.18 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be given a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.79%.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Visa 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.