Visa (NYSE:V) Lifted to “Strong-Buy” at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of Visa (NYSE:V) from a moderate buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a research note released on Tuesday, Zacks.com reports.

Other research analysts have also issued reports about the company. William Blair raised Visa to a strong-buy rating in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Monness Crespi & Hardt reiterated a neutral rating on shares of Visa in a report on Tuesday. Citigroup decreased their price objective on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $319.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Evercore ISI cut their price objective on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $330.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, June 25th. Finally, Macquarie reissued an outperform rating and set a $300.00 target price on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Six investment 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 company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $310.22.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of V stock opened at $275.17 on Tuesday. Visa has a fifty-two week low of $227.78 and a fifty-two week high of $293.07. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a current ratio of 1.37. The firm has a market capitalization of $503.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.75, a PEG ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 0.96. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $271.12 and its 200-day simple moving average is $273.39.

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, hitting the consensus estimate of $2.42. Visa had a net margin of 54.72% and a return on equity of 51.94%. The company had revenue of $8.90 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.92 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.16 EPS. Visa’s revenue was up 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Visa will post 9.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced 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 0.76%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.24%.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Company insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. National Bank of Canada FI raised its stake in Visa by 787.1% during the 1st quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,619,881 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,296,820,000 after acquiring an additional 4,099,122 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB purchased a new stake in Visa in the first quarter valued at approximately $511,321,000. GQG Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 40.1% in the first quarter. GQG Partners LLC now owns 5,990,634 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,671,866,000 after acquiring an additional 1,715,686 shares during the period. Wulff Hansen & CO. grew its position in shares of Visa by 26,951.9% during the second quarter. Wulff Hansen & CO. now owns 1,587,944 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $416,788,000 after acquiring an additional 1,582,074 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado increased its stake in Visa by 14,306.3% in the fourth quarter. Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado now owns 1,500,270 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $390,595,000 after purchasing an additional 1,489,856 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other 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.