Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Down 0.9%

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s share price fell 0.9% during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as low as $277.70 and last traded at $278.12. 1,110,502 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 80% from the average session volume of 5,577,244 shares. The stock had previously closed at $280.60.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Mizuho reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $265.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 6th. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $304.00 to $319.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, January 29th. Evercore ISI raised their price objective on Visa from $325.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, UBS Group raised their target price on Visa from $305.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $295.82.

Visa Price Performance

The company has a quick ratio of 1.45, a current ratio of 1.45 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $278.54 and its 200-day moving average is $258.27. The company has a market cap of $509.08 billion, a PE ratio of 31.94, a PEG ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.34 by $0.07. The company had revenue of $8.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.55 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 50.02% and a net margin of 53.92%. The firm’s revenue was up 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.18 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 9.9 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Investors of record on Friday, February 9th were paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 8th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.75%. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 23.94%.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total transaction of $729,271.20. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,365,954.24. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other Visa news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total transaction of $729,271.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,365,954.24. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total value of $9,874,729.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares in the company, valued at approximately $62,716,662.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 47,311 shares of company stock valued at $12,832,129 in the last quarter. 0.19% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in Visa by 0.3% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 141,413,922 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $36,817,115,000 after acquiring an additional 361,254 shares in the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.5% in the 2nd quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 126,912,205 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $30,139,110,000 after purchasing an additional 3,070,682 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of Visa by 1.7% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 74,133,003 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $17,605,106,000 after purchasing an additional 1,235,891 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley lifted its position in Visa by 13.0% in the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 51,122,866 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,621,287,000 after buying an additional 5,864,340 shares during the last quarter. Finally, FMR LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 4.7% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 50,357,747 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $11,582,785,000 after buying an additional 2,257,605 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

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.