Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Up 0.4% After Analyst Upgrade

Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) traded up 0.4% during mid-day trading on Thursday after Piper Sandler raised their price target on the stock from $322.00 to $368.00. Piper Sandler currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $327.08 and last traded at $324.89. 1,234,812 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 77% from the average session volume of 5,356,201 shares. The stock had previously closed at $323.56.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports on the stock. Macquarie boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Susquehanna raised their price objective on Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, Oppenheimer upped their target price on Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $334.58.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the 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 sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Visa

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in V. MBB Public Markets I LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 2,662.4% during the second quarter. MBB Public Markets I LLC now owns 112,514 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $29,532,000 after buying an additional 108,441 shares during the period. Maverick Capital Ltd. raised its stake in Visa by 28.3% during the 2nd quarter. Maverick Capital Ltd. now owns 590,112 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $154,887,000 after acquiring an additional 130,254 shares during the last quarter. Matrix Private Capital Group LLC lifted its position in Visa by 2.3% during the 2nd quarter. Matrix Private Capital Group LLC now owns 2,244 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $589,000 after acquiring an additional 50 shares during the period. Marshfield Associates grew its stake in shares of Visa by 0.3% in the 2nd quarter. Marshfield Associates now owns 925,954 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $243,035,000 after purchasing an additional 2,825 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Makena Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.7% in the second quarter. Makena Capital Management LLC now owns 61,525 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $16,148,000 after purchasing an additional 1,020 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $314.54 and a 200 day moving average price of $289.98. The firm has a market cap of $615.11 billion, a PE ratio of 33.94, a PEG ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 0.96.

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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The business’s revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.33 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.71%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 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.