Sandy Cove Advisors LLC Purchases 304 Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Sandy Cove Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) by 18.2% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,971 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock after acquiring an additional 304 shares during the period. Sandy Cove Advisors LLC’s holdings in Visa were worth $513,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. BlackRock Inc. grew its holdings in Visa by 2.5% in the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 126,912,205 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $30,139,110,000 after purchasing an additional 3,070,682 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its holdings in Visa by 1.7% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 74,133,003 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $17,605,106,000 after purchasing an additional 1,235,891 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley grew its holdings in Visa by 13.0% in the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 51,122,866 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,621,287,000 after purchasing an additional 5,864,340 shares during the period. FMR LLC grew its holdings in Visa by 4.7% in the third 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 period. Finally, Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 116,608.6% during the fourth quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 24,504,130 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,090,978,000 after buying an additional 24,483,134 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently issued reports on V. KeyCorp raised their target price on shares of Visa from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, January 8th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $290.00 to $309.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Mizuho lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $243.00 to $265.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 18th. Monness Crespi & Hardt initiated coverage on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, December 20th. They set a “neutral” rating on the stock. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $280.00 to $295.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 12th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $295.29.

Visa Stock Performance

Visa stock traded up $0.05 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $281.26. 8,748,794 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 5,655,137. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 1.45. Visa Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $216.14 and a fifty-two week high of $290.96. The company has a market capitalization of $516.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.37, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 0.96. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $278.20 and its two-hundred day moving average is $258.03.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.34 by $0.07. Visa had a net margin of 53.92% and a return on equity of 50.02%. The firm had revenue of $8.63 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.55 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.18 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 9.9 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Investors of record on Friday, February 9th were issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.74%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 8th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 23.94%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total value of $9,874,729.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at $62,716,662.40. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total transaction of $729,271.20. Following the transaction, 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 filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total transaction of $9,874,729.20. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at $62,716,662.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 47,311 shares of company stock worth $12,832,129 over the last 90 days. 0.19% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Visa Company 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.