Visa (NYSE:V) Trading Up 0.2% on Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s share price was up 0.2% during mid-day trading on Thursday after Susquehanna raised their price target on the stock from $339.00 to $375.00. Susquehanna currently has a positive rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $315.24 and last traded at $314.29. Approximately 668,972 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 90% from the average daily volume of 6,883,124 shares. The stock had previously closed at $313.79.

Several other analysts also recently issued reports on the company. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their target price on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Visa from $322.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $321.00 price target (up from $318.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $324.74.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Arjuna Capital raised its stake in Visa by 0.8% in the second quarter. Arjuna Capital now owns 11,851 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,111,000 after buying an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Custom Index Systems LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the third quarter valued at about $731,000. FORA Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $7,987,000. Chicago Capital LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 5.2% in the 3rd quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $111,331,000 after purchasing an additional 20,023 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Copley Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in Visa during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $616,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $298.56 and its 200-day simple moving average is $280.71. The firm has a market cap of $586.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.40, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.33 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.75%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

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.