Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Up 0.8% – Still a Buy?

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) traded up 0.8% during trading on Friday . The stock traded as high as $311.57 and last traded at $311.57. 826,640 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 88% from the average session volume of 6,919,769 shares. The stock had previously closed at $309.08.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently issued reports on V shares. Bank of America lifted their target price on Visa from $279.00 to $308.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price objective on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. BNP Paribas upgraded Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 target price for the company in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $317.00 target price on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, September 12th. Finally, Macquarie boosted their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $321.74.

Visa Stock Up 0.6 %

The company has a 50-day moving average of $295.71 and a 200-day moving average of $279.71. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The company has a market capitalization of $579.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.08 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results 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. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $2.33 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.76%. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. State Street Corp grew 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 buying an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its stake in 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 acquiring an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc lifted its stake in Visa by 2.2% during the 2nd 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 in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.