Visa (NYSE:V) Hits New 52-Week High After Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) hit a new 52-week high on Monday after Piper Sandler raised their price target on the stock from $322.00 to $368.00. Piper Sandler currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $331.30 and last traded at $329.68, with a volume of 399056 shares. The stock had previously closed at $330.20.

Other research analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. Mizuho upped their price objective on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Bank of America upped their price target on Visa from $314.00 to $331.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on shares of Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Oppenheimer increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $335.52.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted 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 worth $2,683,101,000 after acquiring 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 valued at $1,119,725,000 after purchasing an additional 4,166,905 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted 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 worth $21,064,179,000 after purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 7.7% in the 3rd 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 purchasing an additional 2,772,549 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 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. The company has a market cap of $616.74 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.97, a PEG ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 0.96. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $314.95 and a 200 day moving average price of $290.79.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $2.33 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.71%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

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.