Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Up 1.3% – Here’s Why

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) shares traded up 1.3% during mid-day trading on Thursday . The company traded as high as $349.50 and last traded at $348.74. 942,424 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 86% from the average session volume of 6,672,318 shares. The stock had previously closed at $344.18.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently weighed in on V. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. StockNews.com raised shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, March 20th. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 14th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Visa currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $353.96.

Visa Trading Up 1.7 %

The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The stock has a market cap of $650.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $342.50 and its 200 day simple moving average is $314.42.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a net margin of 54.27% and a return on equity of 54.79%. As a group, analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.67%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.79%.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 39,350 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.41, for a total value of $13,395,133.50. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 26,413 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,991,249.33. This represents a 59.84 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 143,205 shares of company stock worth $48,560,961 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Visa

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of V. Norges Bank bought a new position in Visa during the fourth quarter worth about $5,171,271,000. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Visa by 4.6% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 159,405,343 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $50,378,465,000 after purchasing an additional 7,079,706 shares during the period. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new position in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter valued at about $1,955,403,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 17,018.7% during the 4th quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 3,949,118 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,248,079,000 after purchasing an additional 3,926,049 shares in the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Visa by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.