Eastern Bank Purchases 217,852 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Eastern Bank raised its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 197.8% during the third quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 327,990 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 217,852 shares during the period. Visa makes up 1.6% of Eastern Bank’s portfolio, making the stock its 13th biggest position. Eastern Bank’s holdings in Visa were worth $90,181,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Sierra Capital LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 92.7% in the third quarter. Sierra Capital LLC now owns 4,567 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,256,000 after purchasing an additional 2,197 shares during the last quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 12.5% during the third quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 145,728 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $40,068,000 after acquiring an additional 16,187 shares during the period. Flagship Harbor Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the third quarter valued at approximately $11,419,000. Dock Street Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in Visa by 3.1% in the third quarter. Dock Street Asset Management Inc. now owns 143,658 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $39,499,000 after purchasing an additional 4,373 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Harbor Advisory Corp MA increased its holdings in Visa by 3.9% during the 3rd quarter. Harbor Advisory Corp MA now owns 9,336 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,567,000 after purchasing an additional 350 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 equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Evercore ISI dropped their price target on Visa from $335.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, June 25th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised shares of Visa from a “moderate buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. StockNews.com raised shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, August 9th. William Blair raised shares of Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Visa from $290.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 20th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $314.19.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of V opened at $284.88 on Wednesday. The business’s 50-day moving average is $277.95 and its two-hundred day moving average is $273.02. The company has a market capitalization of $521.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.83, a P/E/G ratio of 2.00 and a beta of 0.96. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $228.03 and a fifty-two week high of $293.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a current ratio of 1.37.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $2.42. Visa had a return on equity of 51.94% and a net margin of 54.72%. The company had revenue of $8.90 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.92 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.16 earnings per share. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 9.6% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 9.92 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $148,687.06. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 0.19% 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.