Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd Raises Holdings in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd grew its position in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 9.0% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 10,860 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after purchasing an additional 898 shares during the quarter. Harvest Fund Management Co. Ltd’s holdings in Visa were worth $2,830,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in V. FMR LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 4.7% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 50,357,747 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $11,582,785,000 after purchasing an additional 2,257,605 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 4.7% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 17,073,700 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,927,122,000 after purchasing an additional 763,505 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 2.7% during the 3rd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,229,004 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,272,846,000 after purchasing an additional 374,489 shares during the last quarter. Jennison Associates LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 11,824,113 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,078,408,000 after purchasing an additional 85,123 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Brown Advisory Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 1.5% during the 3rd quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. now owns 7,542,434 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,734,835,000 after purchasing an additional 108,280 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total transaction of $729,271.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,365,954.24. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total value of $729,271.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,365,954.24. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,200 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $280.36, for a total value of $2,298,952.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $150,833.68. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 18,965 shares of company stock valued at $5,256,352 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have commented on V shares. Robert W. Baird increased their price target on Visa from $314.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 17th. Redburn Atlantic reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $307.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, March 27th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on Visa from $300.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 6th. UBS Group increased their price objective on Visa from $315.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on Visa from $309.00 to $315.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $302.58.

Visa Trading Down 0.6 %

Shares of NYSE V opened at $273.46 on Thursday. Visa Inc. has a twelve month low of $216.14 and a twelve month high of $290.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.45, a quick ratio of 1.45 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $279.44 and a 200-day simple moving average of $263.97. The stock has a market capitalization of $502.21 billion, a PE ratio of 30.73, a PEG ratio of 1.89 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.51 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.43 by $0.08. Visa had a return on equity of 51.72% and a net margin of 53.87%. The business had revenue of $8.78 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.62 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $2.09 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 9.9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 9.88 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, May 17th will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, May 16th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.76%. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.24%.

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.