Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Up 0.5% on Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) shares were up 0.5% during mid-day trading on Tuesday after Susquehanna raised their price target on the stock from $339.00 to $375.00. Susquehanna currently has a positive rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $310.02 and last traded at $309.94. Approximately 928,266 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 87% from the average daily volume of 6,904,657 shares. The stock had previously closed at $308.30.

A number of other brokerages also recently commented on V. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Piper Sandler raised their target price on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Monness Crespi & Hardt reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. Compass Point assumed coverage on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. They set a “buy” rating and a $319.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report 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’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $324.74.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Visa by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its holdings in Visa by 2.4% in the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,833,981,000 after acquiring an additional 345,829 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc lifted its holdings in Visa by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after acquiring an additional 312,286 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Up 0.5 %

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 capitalization of $584.62 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.31, a P/E/G ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 0.96. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $297.08 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $280.24.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $2.33 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.75%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

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.