Brokerages Set Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) PT at $329.70

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) has been given a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” by the twenty-eight ratings firms that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 12-month price target among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $330.85.

Several analysts have recently commented on the stock. Robert W. Baird increased their price target on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 3rd. Mizuho lifted their price objective on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, 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 this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 45,189.4% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,683,101,000 after purchasing an additional 9,736,958 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% in the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,119,725,000 after buying an additional 4,166,905 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings in Visa by 4.5% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its position in Visa by 6.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Visa by 7.7% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Trading Up 0.3 %

Shares of V opened at $312.74 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. The company has a market cap of $582.60 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.14, a PEG ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $311.35 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $286.45. Visa has a 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $321.61.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.33 EPS. Analysts predict that Visa will post 11.23 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.75%. This is a boost 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.