Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Up 0.7% After Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) rose 0.7% on Tuesday after Bank of America raised their price target on the stock from $279.00 to $308.00. Bank of America currently has a neutral rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $292.80 and last traded at $292.57. Approximately 855,557 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 88% from the average daily volume of 7,053,967 shares. The stock had previously closed at $290.48.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently issued reports on V. Citigroup lowered their price objective on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $319.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Royal Bank of Canada reduced their price objective on shares of Visa from $315.00 to $311.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. William Blair upgraded shares of Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $317.00 target price on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, September 12th. Finally, Macquarie reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $300.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $310.22.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $148,687.06. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Alaethes Wealth LLC grew its holdings in Visa by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Alaethes Wealth LLC now owns 8,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,302,000 after purchasing an additional 37 shares during the last quarter. Jessup Wealth Management Inc boosted its holdings in Visa by 0.7% in the first quarter. Jessup Wealth Management Inc now owns 5,051 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,410,000 after acquiring an additional 37 shares in the last quarter. Long Run Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.5% during the first quarter. Long Run Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,519 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $424,000 after acquiring an additional 37 shares in the last quarter. Cordatus Wealth Management LLC raised its position in shares of Visa by 0.3% in the 1st quarter. Cordatus Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,793 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,012,000 after purchasing an additional 37 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Garden State Investment Advisory Services LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 1.8% in the 4th quarter. Garden State Investment Advisory Services LLC now owns 2,191 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $571,000 after purchasing an additional 38 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $268.78 and its 200-day simple moving average is $273.21. The firm has a market cap of $533.35 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.01 and a beta of 0.96. 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 (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 EPS 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 was up 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.16 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 9.92 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Investors 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 0.71%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.24%.

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.