Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Up 0.6% After Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s stock price traded up 0.6% during trading on Wednesday after Susquehanna raised their price target on the stock from $339.00 to $375.00. Susquehanna currently has a positive rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $315.55 and last traded at $314.41. 1,214,816 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 82% from the average session volume of 6,895,596 shares. The stock had previously closed at $312.38.

Several other equities analysts have also recently issued reports on V. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Mizuho upped their target price on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. BNP Paribas raised shares of Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 price objective for the company in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Monness Crespi & Hardt reaffirmed a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on Visa from $290.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 20th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $324.74.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following 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 filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 0.19% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Peterson Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the third quarter worth $26,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its stake in Visa by 970.0% in the 2nd quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 107 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 97 shares in the last quarter. Reston Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Visa in the 3rd quarter worth about $31,000. TruNorth Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 211.9% during the second quarter. TruNorth Capital Management LLC now owns 131 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $34,000 after acquiring an additional 89 shares during the period. Finally, CarsonAllaria Wealth Management Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the second quarter valued at approximately $35,000. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Visa Stock Up 0.4 %

The stock has a market cap of $584.39 billion, a PE ratio of 32.31, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 0.96. The business has a fifty day moving average of $297.08 and a 200-day moving average of $280.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.33 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.75%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.25%.

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.