Visa (NYSE:V) Lowered to “Hold” Rating by StockNews.com

StockNews.com lowered shares of Visa (NYSE:V) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note released on Wednesday.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently issued reports on V. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Raymond James restated an “outperform” rating and set a $393.00 price objective (up previously from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Bank of America lifted their target price on Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. William Blair reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-two have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $331.72 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $616.26 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.44, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95. 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 stock has a 50 day moving average price of $337.96 and a 200-day moving average price of $310.62. Visa has a one year low of $252.70 and a one year high of $366.54.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. Equities analysts expect that Visa will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.71%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

Insider Activity

In related news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total transaction of $815,313.84. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,488 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,569,094.56. This trade represents a 34.19 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 39,350 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $327.20, for a total value of $12,875,320.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 26,413 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,642,333.60. This trade represents a 59.84 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 103,855 shares of company stock valued at $35,165,827. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. acquired a new stake in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Bradley & Co. Private Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Peterson Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in Visa in the third quarter valued at approximately $26,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its holdings in Visa by 48.5% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 98 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 32 shares during the period. Finally, Modus Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $32,000. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.