Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Up 1.2% on Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s stock price was up 1.2% during trading on Thursday after Macquarie raised their price target on the stock from $300.00 to $335.00. Macquarie currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $296.34 and last traded at $293.74. Approximately 1,656,057 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 77% from the average daily volume of 7,049,005 shares. The stock had previously closed at $290.16.

Other equities research analysts have also issued reports about the company. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating and set a $321.00 price target (up from $318.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $290.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of Visa from a “moderate buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $322.00 to $326.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, BNP Paribas upgraded Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $320.07.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s 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 directly owns 538 shares in the company, valued at $148,687.06. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Company insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Visa by 0.6% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 142,202,830 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $39,685,966,000 after buying an additional 788,908 shares during the period. Capital International Investors lifted its position in shares of Visa by 2.7% in the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,570,391 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,578,025,000 after acquiring an additional 626,618 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 5.4% in the first quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 18,863,796 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,264,508,000 after acquiring an additional 968,008 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its holdings in Visa by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,833,981,000 after buying an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its holdings in Visa by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after acquiring an additional 312,286 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $280.09 and its 200 day simple moving average is $273.38. The firm has a market cap of $534.18 billion, a PE ratio of 32.82, a PEG ratio of 1.95 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54.

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

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.81%. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.24%.

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.