Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Up 0.7% on Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) rose 0.7% during mid-day trading on Tuesday after Barclays raised their price target on the stock from $319.00 to $347.00. Barclays currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $294.78 and last traded at $294.03. Approximately 1,044,047 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 85% from the average daily volume of 7,029,482 shares. The stock had previously closed at $291.85.

V has been the subject of a number of other reports. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating and set a $317.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $322.00 to $326.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Monness Crespi & Hardt reaffirmed a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Compass Point assumed coverage on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $319.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $321.74.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction on 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 owns 538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $148,687.06. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 45,189.4% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,683,101,000 after buying an additional 9,736,958 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% in the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,119,725,000 after acquiring an additional 4,166,905 shares during the period. National Bank of Canada FI raised its stake in Visa by 787.1% in the 1st quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,619,881 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,296,820,000 after acquiring an additional 4,099,122 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB acquired a new stake in Visa during the 1st quarter worth about $511,321,000. Finally, GQG Partners LLC grew its stake in Visa by 40.1% during the 1st quarter. GQG Partners LLC now owns 5,990,634 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,671,866,000 after purchasing an additional 1,715,686 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Visa Stock Up 4.8 %

The firm has a market capitalization of $560.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.37. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $282.69 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $274.20.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.33 earnings per share. Visa’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.18 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed 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 of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.77%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 21.38%.

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.