SmartHarvest Portfolios LLC Acquires Shares of 6,981 Visa Inc. $V

Key Points

• SmartHarvest Portfolios LLC disclosed a new fourth-quarter stake in Visa, buying 6,981 shares valued at about $2.45 million. The position makes Visa its 16th-largest holding and represents roughly 0.8% of the portfolio.
• Institutional ownership of Visa remains heavy, with hedge funds and other investors holding about 82.15% of the stock. Several other funds recently added to or expanded their positions, including Vanguard and PNC Financial Services.
• Analysts are still broadly constructive on Visa, with a consensus Buy rating and average price target of $387.78. The stock also continues to be supported by strong earnings, dividend payments, and a new $20 billion buyback authorization, even as some insiders recently sold shares.

SmartHarvest Portfolios LLC acquired a new stake in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V - Free Report) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor acquired 6,981 shares of the credit-card processor's stock, valued at approximately $2,448,000. Visa comprises about 0.8% of SmartHarvest Portfolios LLC's investment portfolio, making the stock its 16th largest holding.

Other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Invariant Investment Management purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the 4th quarter valued at $969,000. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Visa by 0.7% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 160,975,832 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $56,455,834,000 after buying an additional 1,054,343 shares during the last quarter. Swiss Life Asset Management Ltd grew its position in shares of Visa by 4.7% in the 3rd quarter. Swiss Life Asset Management Ltd now owns 527,530 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $180,088,000 after buying an additional 23,863 shares during the last quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Visa by 2.1% in the 3rd quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 2,884,879 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $984,840,000 after buying an additional 60,198 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Savvy Advisors Inc. grew its position in shares of Visa by 30.1% in the 4th quarter. Savvy Advisors Inc. now owns 28,922 shares of the credit-card processor's stock valued at $10,143,000 after buying an additional 6,688 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

V has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Weiss Ratings cut shares of Visa from a "buy (b-)" rating to a "hold (c+)" rating in a research note on Thursday, April 16th. Oppenheimer reiterated an "outperform" rating and set a $403.00 price target (up from $391.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Evercore set a $350.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Sanford C. Bernstein reiterated an "outperform" rating and set a $450.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research note on Tuesday, June 2nd. Finally, Raymond James Financial reiterated an "outperform" rating and set a $389.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seventeen have given a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa presently has an average rating of "Buy" and a consensus target price of $387.78.

Key Headlines Impacting Visa

Here are the key news stories impacting Visa this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Visa announced a major partnership with OpenAI to enable secure payments inside ChatGPT, potentially opening a new channel for AI-driven commerce and reinforcing Visa’s role in digital transactions.
• Positive Sentiment: Visa is expanding its AI, tokenization, and stablecoin capabilities, which may strengthen its competitive moat and support longer-term payment volume growth.
• Positive Sentiment: Several analyst-style articles highlighted Visa as a stock to watch, citing earnings growth, price strength, and innovation momentum.
• Neutral Sentiment: Mastercard also unveiled AI-related payment tools and stablecoin initiatives, underscoring rising competition in agentic commerce rather than creating an immediate negative for Visa.
• Neutral Sentiment: Visa remains in the spotlight for the recently approved $38 billion swipe-fee settlement, but the latest coverage suggests the legal overhang is becoming more settled rather than newly pressured.
• Negative Sentiment: Despite the upbeat product news, the stock has been trading lower, likely reflecting profit-taking and investor caution about whether these AI initiatives will translate into near-term revenue.

Visa Stock Down 1.2%

Shares of NYSE:V opened at $319.21 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $572.60 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.81, a P/E/G ratio of 1.73 and a beta of 0.77. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $318.23 and a 200 day moving average price of $324.42. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64, a current ratio of 1.09 and a quick ratio of 1.09. Visa Inc. has a 1-year low of $293.89 and a 1-year high of $374.17.

Visa (NYSE:V - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The credit-card processor reported $3.31 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $3.10 by $0.21. The firm had revenue of $11.23 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $10.75 billion. Visa had a net margin of 51.68% and a return on equity of 65.00%. Visa's quarterly revenue was up 17.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.76 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 13.09 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, May 12th were issued a $0.67 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, May 12th. This represents a $2.68 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Visa's payout ratio is presently 23.34%.

Visa announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock buyback plan on Tuesday, April 28th that permits the company to repurchase $20.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the credit-card processor to buy up to 3.6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are typically an indication that the company's leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 31,455 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $340.14, for a total value of $10,699,103.70. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 15,174 shares of the company's stock, valued at $5,161,284.36. The trade was a 67.46% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Chris Suh sold 10,639 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $324.81, for a total transaction of $3,455,653.59. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 9,872 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,206,524.32. The trade was a 51.87% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. 0.12% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About Visa

Visa Inc is a global payments technology company that facilitates electronic funds transfers and digital commerce by connecting consumers, merchants, financial institutions and governments. The firm operates one of the world's largest payment networks, providing processing, authorization, clearing and settlement services for credit, debit and prepaid card transactions. Visa's network-based model enables partner banks and other issuers to offer branded payment products while Visa focuses on the infrastructure, standards and technologies that move money securely and efficiently around the world.

Visa's product and service portfolio includes card-based payment products for consumers and businesses, real-time push-payment capabilities, tokenization and authentication services, fraud and risk-management tools, data analytics and APIs for fintech and merchant integration.

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