Visa (NYSE:V) Earns Outperform Rating from Macquarie

Macquarie reissued their outperform rating on shares of Visa (NYSE:V) in a research note released on Friday, Benzinga reports. Macquarie currently has a $300.00 price objective on the credit-card processor’s stock.

A number of other research firms have also commented on V. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a buy rating and set a $317.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price target on Visa from $325.00 to $300.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an overweight rating and set a $322.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, September 25th. Royal Bank of Canada dropped their price target on Visa from $315.00 to $311.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on Visa from $290.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Tuesday, August 20th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $310.22.

Visa Price Performance

Visa stock opened at $275.17 on Friday. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $271.31 and its 200 day simple moving average is $273.19. The stock has a market cap of $503.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.75, a P/E/G ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 0.96. Visa has a 12-month low of $227.78 and a 12-month high of $293.07. The company has a quick ratio of 1.37, a current ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $2.42. Visa had a return on equity of 51.94% and a net margin of 54.72%. The firm had revenue of $8.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.92 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.16 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Visa will post 9.92 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

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

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $148,687.06. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 0.19% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of V. Hilltop National Bank bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the 1st quarter valued at about $1,212,000. Absolute Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the 1st quarter valued at about $404,000. Davidson Capital Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Visa by 0.5% in the 1st quarter. Davidson Capital Management Inc. now owns 9,275 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,588,000 after buying an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. Empirical Finance LLC grew its position in shares of Visa by 4.4% in the 1st quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 45,724 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $12,761,000 after buying an additional 1,914 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Arjuna Capital grew its position in shares of Visa by 0.8% in the 2nd quarter. Arjuna Capital now owns 11,851 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,111,000 after buying an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

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.