Visa (NYSE:V) Upgraded to “Buy” at StockNews.com

Visa (NYSE:V) was upgraded by stock analysts at StockNews.com from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued to investors on Thursday.

V has been the topic of several other research reports. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, February 3rd. William Blair reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their price objective on Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Citigroup restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $353.96.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:V opened at $336.51 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $340.48 and a 200 day moving average price of $312.82. The company has a market cap of $625.15 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.92, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. Visa has a twelve month low of $252.70 and a twelve month high of $366.54.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. Research analysts predict that Visa will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,572 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total value of $874,480.00. Following the transaction, the general counsel now owns 11,925 shares in the company, valued at $4,054,500. This trade represents a 17.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was 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. Insiders have sold a total of 143,205 shares of company stock worth $48,560,961 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Visa by 4.6% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 159,405,343 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $50,378,465,000 after acquiring an additional 7,079,706 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 6.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Visa by 4.4% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 40,345,176 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $12,729,901,000 after buying an additional 1,689,926 shares during the period. Finally, Capital International Investors boosted its holdings in Visa by 3.8% during the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,816,573 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $7,526,660,000 after buying an additional 866,596 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

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.