Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Down 2.1%

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) dropped 2.1% on Wednesday . The stock traded as low as $279.00 and last traded at $279.29. Approximately 1,139,309 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 84% from the average daily volume of 7,100,818 shares. The stock had previously closed at $285.34.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Evercore ISI cut their target price on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, June 25th. Bank of America reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $297.00 price objective (down previously from $305.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, July 10th. William Blair upgraded Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $290.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 20th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group dropped their target price on shares of Visa from $325.00 to $300.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $309.54.

Visa Price Performance

The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $267.32 and its 200 day simple moving average is $273.13. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.37. The stock has a market cap of $513.69 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.21, a P/E/G ratio of 1.97 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 EPS for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $2.42. Visa had a return on equity of 51.94% and a net margin of 54.72%. The business had revenue of $8.90 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.92 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.16 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 9.92 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 9th were issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.74%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, August 9th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares in the company, valued at $148,687.06. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 0.19% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Visa

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Heritage Wealth Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the second quarter valued at about $721,000. Lazari Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in Visa by 31.3% in the second quarter. Lazari Capital Management Inc. now owns 5,536 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,453,000 after purchasing an additional 1,319 shares in the last quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $87,426,000. Ghisallo Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $38,027,000. Finally, Clear Rock Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 3.6% during the 2nd quarter. Clear Rock Advisors LLC now owns 13,067 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,430,000 after purchasing an additional 459 shares in 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.