Visa (NYSE:V) Trading Up 1% After Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s share price rose 1% on Thursday after Robert W. Baird raised their price target on the stock from $320.00 to $330.00. Robert W. Baird currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $290.85 and last traded at $290.48. Approximately 1,523,356 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 79% from the average daily volume of 7,090,297 shares. The stock had previously closed at $287.52.

V has been the topic of a number of other reports. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their target price on shares of Visa from $325.00 to $300.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Compass Point started coverage on Visa in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $319.00 price objective for the company. Macquarie reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $300.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, September 27th. StockNews.com upgraded Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, August 9th. Finally, Bank of America lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $308.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $314.19.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value 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. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Howard Capital Management Group LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 0.6% during the third quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC now owns 106,355 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $29,242,000 after buying an additional 610 shares during the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd lifted its position in Visa by 1.9% during the third quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management Company Ltd now owns 441,939 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $121,511,000 after acquiring an additional 8,288 shares during the last quarter. Marathon Asset Management Ltd lifted its position in Visa by 2.4% during the third quarter. Marathon Asset Management Ltd now owns 194,721 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $53,537,000 after acquiring an additional 4,479 shares during the last quarter. Ballast Inc. boosted its stake in Visa by 5.8% in the third quarter. Ballast Inc. now owns 2,921 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $803,000 after acquiring an additional 160 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Heirloom Wealth Management grew its holdings in Visa by 1.7% in the third quarter. Heirloom Wealth Management now owns 68,610 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $18,864,000 after purchasing an additional 1,161 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

The business has a 50-day moving average price of $275.69 and a 200-day moving average price of $272.74. The company has a quick ratio of 1.37, a current ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The firm has a market capitalization of $529.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.46, a P/E/G ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $2.42. Visa had a return on equity of 51.94% and a net margin of 54.72%. The company had revenue of $8.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.92 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.16 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 9.92 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, August 9th were paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.72%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 9th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.24%.

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.