Granite Investment Partners LLC Sells 1,522 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Granite Investment Partners LLC lessened its stake in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 1.4% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 110,516 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after selling 1,522 shares during the quarter. Visa makes up 1.2% of Granite Investment Partners LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 16th biggest holding. Granite Investment Partners LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $29,007,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of V. National Bank of Canada FI boosted its position in Visa by 787.1% during the first quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,619,881 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,296,820,000 after acquiring an additional 4,099,122 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the first quarter valued at about $511,321,000. GQG Partners LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 40.1% during the first quarter. GQG Partners LLC now owns 5,990,634 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,671,866,000 after purchasing an additional 1,715,686 shares during the period. Wulff Hansen & CO. raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 26,951.9% during the second quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 1,587,944 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $416,788,000 after purchasing an additional 1,582,074 shares during the period. Finally, Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 14,306.3% during the fourth quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado now owns 1,500,270 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $390,595,000 after purchasing an additional 1,489,856 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Trading Down 1.1 %

Shares of V opened at $285.25 on Friday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $270.27 and its 200-day moving average price is $273.46. The firm has a market capitalization of $519.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.87, a PEG ratio of 2.05 and a beta of 0.96. 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 $227.78 and a 1-year high of $293.07.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.42. Visa had a net margin of 54.72% and a return on equity of 51.94%. 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 company posted $2.16 EPS. Visa’s revenue was up 9.6% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 9.92 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, August 9th were given a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, August 9th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.73%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 23.24%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on V shares. Citigroup dropped their price objective on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $319.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of 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. Piper Sandler lowered their target price on shares of Visa from $322.00 to $319.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. William Blair raised shares of Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $317.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $310.22.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value of $2,382,309.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $148,687.06. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.