Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Receives Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) has received a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-five analysts that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat reports. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and twenty have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year price target among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $303.56.

V has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Mizuho upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $265.00 to $275.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 6th. Redburn Atlantic restated a “neutral” rating and set a $307.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, March 27th. Macquarie upped their price target on shares of Visa from $290.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. Finally, William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th.

Visa Trading Down 0.1 %

NYSE:V opened at $273.33 on Thursday. Visa has a 1 year low of $226.02 and a 1 year high of $290.96. The stock has a market cap of $499.90 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.54, a P/E/G ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 1.40 and a current ratio of 1.40. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $274.11 and a 200-day simple moving average of $273.41.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.51 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.43 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $8.78 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.62 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 51.23% and a net margin of 53.87%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.09 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that Visa will post 9.94 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 3rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 17th were given a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, May 16th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 25,293 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, May 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $277.15, for a total transaction of $7,009,954.95. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,959,322.10. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 25,293 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $277.15, for a total transaction of $7,009,954.95. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,959,322.10. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $280.36, for a total transaction of $2,298,952.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $150,833.68. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 34,402 shares of company stock worth $9,559,382 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Nadler Financial Group Inc. raised its holdings in Visa by 2.4% in the fourth quarter. Nadler Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,900 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $495,000 after buying an additional 44 shares during the period. Towerpoint Wealth LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter valued at $216,000. Andrew Hill Investment Advisors Inc. acquired a new stake in Visa in the 4th quarter valued at $3,427,000. Richelieu Gestion SA purchased a new position in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $307,000. Finally, Cooper Financial Group raised its position in Visa by 6.4% in the fourth quarter. Cooper Financial Group now owns 7,926 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,064,000 after purchasing an additional 476 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.