Visa (NYSE:V) Trading Up 0.1% on Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s share price was up 0.1% on Thursday after Robert W. Baird raised their price target on the stock from $314.00 to $320.00. Robert W. Baird currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $273.15 and last traded at $272.97. Approximately 722,605 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 87% from the average daily volume of 5,733,616 shares. The stock had previously closed at $272.69.

Several other analysts have also weighed in on V. Mizuho restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $265.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, March 27th. William Blair reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 26th. Monness Crespi & Hardt assumed coverage on Visa in a report on Wednesday, December 20th. They set a “neutral” rating for the company. Evercore ISI upped their target price on Visa from $325.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on Visa from $300.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 6th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $298.43.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the company’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 transaction, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $62,716,662.40. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total transaction of $9,874,729.20. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 232,112 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $62,716,662.40. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total value of $729,271.20. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,898 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,365,954.24. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 55,511 shares of company stock valued at $15,131,081 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in V. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 116,608.6% in the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 24,504,130 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,090,978,000 after buying an additional 24,483,134 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Visa in the 4th quarter worth $3,895,015,000. Morgan Stanley boosted its position in shares of Visa by 13.0% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 51,122,866 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,621,287,000 after purchasing an additional 5,864,340 shares during the last quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 17,418.7% in the 4th quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 4,737,229 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,233,338,000 after purchasing an additional 4,710,188 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in shares of Visa by 29.7% in the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,015,639 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,648,985,000 after purchasing an additional 3,209,334 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Visa Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.45 and a current ratio of 1.45. The firm has a market capitalization of $501.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $279.80 and a 200-day moving average price of $262.56.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.34 by $0.07. Visa had a return on equity of 50.02% and a net margin of 53.92%. The business had revenue of $8.63 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.55 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.18 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 9.88 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 9th were issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 8th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.76%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.94%.

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.