Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Receives $335.52 Average Target Price from Analysts

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) has received a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-nine analysts that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average 12 month price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $354.73.

A number of brokerages have issued reports on V. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $354.00 to $393.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Oppenheimer increased their price target on Visa from $375.00 to $390.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. William Blair reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their target price on Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V opened at $345.31 on Friday. Visa has a 52 week low of $252.70 and a 52 week high of $351.25. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The stock has a market cap of $643.27 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.81, a PEG ratio of 2.30 and a beta of 0.97. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $318.40 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $293.81.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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%. On average, analysts expect that Visa will post 11.2 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.68%. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.79%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total transaction of $2,930,800.00. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,572 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total transaction of $874,480.00. Following the transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 11,925 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,054,500. This represents a 17.74 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 21,983 shares of company stock worth $7,213,146 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. International Assets Investment Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 45,189.4% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,683,101,000 after buying an additional 9,736,958 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC raised its position in Visa by 4,412.3% during the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,119,725,000 after acquiring an additional 4,166,905 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Visa by 4.5% during the third 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 in the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 6.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

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.