Citigroup Issues Positive Forecast for Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price

Visa (NYSE:V) had its price target hoisted by analysts at Citigroup from $319.00 to $326.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a “buy” rating on the credit-card processor’s stock. Citigroup’s target price suggests a potential upside of 11.96% from the company’s current price.

Several other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on V. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. 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. William Blair raised Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Macquarie restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $300.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, September 27th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $318.78.

Visa Trading Up 3.3 %

Shares of NYSE:V traded up $9.29 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $291.17. 5,988,042 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 7,056,153. 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 has a 12-month low of $232.99 and a 12-month high of $295.78. The firm has a market cap of $532.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.51, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 0.96. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $279.65 and its 200 day moving average price is $273.26.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a return on equity of 51.94% and a net margin of 54.72%. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.33 EPS. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa will post 9.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value of $2,382,309.40. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares in the company, valued at $148,687.06. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Visa

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of V. POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 970.0% during the second quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 107 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 97 shares during the period. Reston Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in Visa during the third quarter worth about $31,000. TruNorth Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in 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 purchasing an additional 89 shares during the last quarter. Bbjs Financial Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Visa during the second quarter worth about $35,000. Finally, CarsonAllaria Wealth Management Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the 2nd quarter valued at about $35,000. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.