Visa (NYSE:V) Sets New 52-Week High After Analyst Upgrade

Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) reached a new 52-week high on Wednesday after Morgan Stanley raised their price target on the stock from $326.00 to $371.00. Morgan Stanley currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $319.49 and last traded at $318.86, with a volume of 291625 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $318.30.

A number of other equities research analysts have also weighed in on the stock. Piper Sandler raised their price target on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. TD Cowen boosted their target price on Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Barclays boosted their price objective on Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, November 4th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Mizuho raised their target price on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $326.41.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 0.19% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. IMS Capital Management lifted its position in shares of Visa by 0.9% in the third quarter. IMS Capital Management now owns 10,962 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,014,000 after acquiring an additional 93 shares in the last quarter. Brass Tax Wealth Management Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 12.6% in the third quarter. Brass Tax Wealth Management Inc. now owns 2,298 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $632,000 after buying an additional 257 shares in the last quarter. Legacy Wealth Management LLC MS raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.5% in the third quarter. Legacy Wealth Management LLC MS now owns 27,274 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $7,499,000 after acquiring an additional 655 shares during the last quarter. Alternative Investment Advisors LLC. purchased a new stake in Visa during the third quarter worth approximately $224,000. Finally, Garden State Investment Advisory Services LLC boosted its position in Visa by 5.5% in the 3rd quarter. Garden State Investment Advisory Services LLC now owns 2,589 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $714,000 after buying an additional 135 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Trading Up 0.2 %

The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $301.00 and a 200 day moving average price of $281.78. The company has a market cap of $594.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.33 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.74%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s payout ratio is 24.25%.

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.