Compass Point Begins Coverage on Visa (NYSE:V)

Compass Point started coverage on shares of Visa (NYSE:V) in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, MarketBeat.com reports. The firm issued a buy rating and a $319.00 price objective on the credit-card processor’s stock.

Several other research firms have also issued reports on V. TD Cowen reduced their target price on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $318.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Evercore ISI reduced their target price on Visa from $335.00 to $330.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, June 25th. William Blair upgraded Visa to a strong-buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Visa from $290.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price target on Visa from $325.00 to $300.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average target price of $309.54.

Visa Trading Up 0.3 %

V stock opened at $279.48 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $509.30 billion, a PE ratio of 31.23, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 0.96. Visa has a one year low of $227.78 and a one year high of $290.96. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $266.53 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $273.14. 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 data on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.42. The business had revenue of $8.90 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.92 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.72% and a return on equity of 51.94%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.16 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that Visa will post 9.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 9th were given 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 of this dividend was Friday, August 9th. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 23.24%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value of $2,382,309.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $148,687.06. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Visa

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of V. Hilltop National Bank purchased a new stake in Visa in the 1st quarter worth approximately $1,212,000. Absolute Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in Visa in the 1st quarter worth approximately $404,000. SageView Advisory Group LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 40.4% in the 4th quarter. SageView Advisory Group LLC now owns 25,137 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $6,967,000 after buying an additional 7,236 shares during the last quarter. Davidson Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.5% in the 1st quarter. Davidson Capital Management Inc. now owns 9,275 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,588,000 after buying an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Empirical Finance LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.4% in the 1st quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 45,724 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $12,761,000 after buying an additional 1,914 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently 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.