Wells Fargo & Company Issues Positive Forecast for Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price

Visa (NYSE:V) had its price objective raised by Wells Fargo & Company from $325.00 to $360.00 in a research report released on Friday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an overweight rating on the credit-card processor’s stock.

Several other research firms have also recently weighed in on V. Mizuho raised their price target on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Oppenheimer raised their price target on Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $317.00 price target on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, September 12th. Robert W. Baird raised their price target on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $329.70.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of V opened at $314.91 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $309.73 and its 200 day simple moving average is $285.76. The stock has a market capitalization of $586.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.36, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. Visa has a 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $321.61.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.33 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts forecast that Visa will post 11.23 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a $0.59 dividend. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.75%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.25%.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in V. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 45,189.4% during the third 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 purchasing an additional 9,736,958 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC raised its stake 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 valued at $1,119,725,000 after buying an additional 4,166,905 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its stake 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 buying an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its stake in Visa by 6.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Visa by 7.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,601,135,000 after buying an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.