Visa (NYSE:V) Hits New 52-Week High – Time to Buy?

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s stock price hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $322.28 and last traded at $322.29, with a volume of 562147 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $319.62.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on V shares. Oppenheimer boosted their target price on Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on shares of Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on shares of Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $331.92.

Visa Stock 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 stock has a market capitalization of $601.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.18, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.15 and a beta of 0.96. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $313.59 and a 200 day moving average of $289.09.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.33 earnings per share. Visa’s revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.73%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 24.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Bennett Selby Investments LP lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.4% during the 4th quarter. Bennett Selby Investments LP now owns 54,774 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $17,311,000 after acquiring an additional 227 shares during the period. Firethorn Wealth Partners LLC lifted its stake in Visa by 4.3% during the fourth quarter. Firethorn Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,551 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $490,000 after purchasing an additional 64 shares during the last quarter. Pflug Koory LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.6% in the 4th quarter. Pflug Koory LLC now owns 3,626 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,146,000 after purchasing an additional 57 shares in the last quarter. Nepsis Inc. increased its stake in shares of Visa by 5.2% in the 4th quarter. Nepsis Inc. now owns 67,752 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,412,000 after purchasing an additional 3,360 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Gradient Investments LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 22.9% during the 4th quarter. Gradient Investments LLC now owns 148,713 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $46,999,000 after buying an additional 27,686 shares during the last quarter. 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.