Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Upgrades Visa (NYSE:V) to Strong-Buy

Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of Visa (NYSE:V) from a moderate buy rating to a strong-buy rating in a research note published on Tuesday morning, Zacks.com reports.

Several other analysts have also commented on the stock. Citigroup dropped their price target on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $319.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Compass Point initiated 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. BNP Paribas raised Visa from a neutral rating to an outperform rating and set a $325.00 target price for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an overweight rating and set a $322.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, William Blair raised shares of Visa to a strong-buy rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 23rd. Six 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. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $310.22.

Visa Trading Up 0.8 %

Shares of Visa stock opened at $271.69 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $271.07 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $273.40. Visa has a 12-month low of $227.78 and a 12-month high of $293.07. The firm has a market capitalization of $496.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.36, a PEG ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $2.42. Visa had a net margin of 54.72% and a return on equity of 51.94%. The company had revenue of $8.90 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.92 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.16 EPS. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 9.6% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts predict that Visa will post 9.92 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, August 9th were issued a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.77%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 9th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on 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 transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.19% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of V. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Visa by 0.6% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 142,202,830 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $39,685,966,000 after purchasing an additional 788,908 shares during the period. Capital International Investors increased its stake in shares of Visa by 2.7% during the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,570,391 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $6,578,025,000 after purchasing an additional 626,618 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 5.4% in the first quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 18,863,796 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,264,508,000 after acquiring an additional 968,008 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after purchasing an additional 345,829 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in Visa by 2.2% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $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 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.