Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Down 1% – Should You Sell?

Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) dropped 1% on Thursday . The company traded as low as $352.28 and last traded at $351.73. Approximately 862,517 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 85% from the average daily volume of 5,569,161 shares. The stock had previously closed at $355.23.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently commented on V. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Raymond James reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $393.00 target price (up previously from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Mizuho increased their price target on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $383.00 price objective (up from $368.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $354.73.

Visa Stock Down 1.7 %

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $327.75 and its 200 day moving average price is $301.05. The stock has a market capitalization of $649.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.26, a P/E/G ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 0.97.

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 return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. As a group, equities analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be issued a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.68%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.79%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total value of $11,801,589.57. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at $12,789,689.82. This represents a 47.99 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total value of $815,313.84. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,488 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,569,094.56. This represents a 34.19 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 58,056 shares of company stock valued at $19,830,050 in the last quarter. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter valued at about $5,171,271,000. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its stake 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 buying an additional 9,736,958 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Visa by 4.6% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 159,405,343 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $50,378,465,000 after buying an additional 7,079,706 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in Visa in the 4th quarter valued at $1,955,403,000. Finally, Proficio Capital Partners LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 17,018.7% in the 4th quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 3,949,118 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,248,079,000 after acquiring an additional 3,926,049 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

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.