Graney & King LLC Invests $379,000 in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Graney & King LLC purchased a new stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 1,200 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock, valued at approximately $379,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Visa by 4.6% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 159,405,343 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $50,378,465,000 after acquiring an additional 7,079,706 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its position in Visa by 4.5% during 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 acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its stake in Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.2% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 12,241,003 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,868,646,000 after purchasing an additional 718,558 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Visa Stock Performance

NYSE V opened at $344.95 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $640.84 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.77, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $366.54. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $341.94 and a 200 day simple moving average of $314.21. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a net margin of 54.27% and a return on equity of 54.79%. Sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.68%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.79%.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In related news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total value of $815,313.84. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,488 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,569,094.56. The trade was a 34.19 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 143,205 shares of company stock valued at $48,560,961 in the last quarter. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently weighed in on V. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $383.00 price target (up from $368.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. StockNews.com raised Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 20th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Visa has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

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.