Visa (NYSE:V) Rating Increased 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 Friday.

Other analysts have also recently issued research reports about the company. Raymond James reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $393.00 target price (up previously from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Bank of America raised their price objective on Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Susquehanna reiterated a “positive” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, March 21st. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $383.00 price target (up from $368.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Citigroup reaffirmed a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $355.84.

Visa Stock Up 1.6 %

NYSE:V opened at $349.82 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12. Visa has a 1-year low of $252.70 and a 1-year high of $366.54. The company has a 50-day moving average of $343.15 and a 200 day moving average of $314.66. The firm has a market cap of $649.89 billion, a PE ratio of 35.26, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a net margin of 54.27% and a return on equity of 54.79%. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Visa will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $363.00, for a total value of $3,129,060.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 537 shares in the company, valued at approximately $194,931. This represents a 94.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 39,350 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $340.41, for a total value of $13,395,133.50. Following the sale, the insider now owns 26,413 shares in the company, valued at $8,991,249.33. This trade represents a 59.84 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 143,205 shares of company stock valued at $48,560,961. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Riverstone Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $217,000. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC boosted its holdings in Visa by 16.4% in the 4th quarter. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC now owns 9,678 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,058,000 after buying an additional 1,361 shares during the last quarter. King Wealth Management Group boosted its holdings in Visa by 9.0% in the 4th quarter. King Wealth Management Group now owns 74,874 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $23,663,000 after buying an additional 6,172 shares during the last quarter. Generali Investments CEE investicni spolecnost a.s. purchased a new stake in Visa during the 4th quarter worth approximately $10,163,000. Finally, Copley Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the third quarter valued at approximately $616,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.