Visa (NYSE:V) Receives Overweight Rating from Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley reissued their overweight rating on shares of Visa (NYSE:V) in a report published on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a $322.00 target price on the credit-card processor’s stock.

A number of other brokerages also recently commented on V. TD Cowen cut their price objective on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $318.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. William Blair upgraded shares of Visa to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their target price on Visa from $315.00 to $311.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Monness Crespi & Hardt reissued a neutral rating on shares of Visa in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Citigroup dropped their price objective on Visa from $321.00 to $319.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $310.22.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of V opened at $275.17 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a current ratio of 1.37. Visa has a fifty-two week low of $227.78 and a fifty-two week high of $293.07. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $271.31 and a 200-day simple moving average of $273.35. The company has a market capitalization of $503.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.75, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.42. The company had revenue of $8.90 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.92 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 51.94% and a net margin of 54.72%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.16 EPS. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Visa will post 9.92 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, August 9th were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, August 9th. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 23.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value of $2,382,309.40. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $148,687.06. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Visa by 0.6% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 142,202,830 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $39,685,966,000 after acquiring an additional 788,908 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.7% in the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,570,391 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,578,025,000 after purchasing an additional 626,618 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors grew its stake in shares of Visa by 5.4% during the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 18,863,796 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,264,508,000 after buying an additional 968,008 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after buying an additional 345,829 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc raised its position in shares of Visa by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,783,857,000 after buying an additional 312,286 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Visa Company Profile

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.