Visa (NYSE:V) Trading Up 0.8% on Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) traded up 0.8% on Wednesday after Morgan Stanley raised their price target on the stock from $326.00 to $371.00. Morgan Stanley currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $321.15 and last traded at $320.93. 1,569,391 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 77% from the average session volume of 6,869,196 shares. The stock had previously closed at $318.30.

Other equities analysts have also issued research reports about the company. Monness Crespi & Hardt reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, November 4th. Citigroup increased their target price on Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $317.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Visa currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $326.41.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Visa

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in Visa by 45,189.4% in the third 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 acquiring an additional 9,736,958 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% in the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,119,725,000 after purchasing an additional 4,166,905 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Visa by 4.5% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.1% during the third 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. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Visa by 7.7% in the third 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 buying an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Visa Trading Up 0.8 %

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’s fifty day moving average is $301.00 and its two-hundred day moving average is $281.78. The company has a market cap of $597.85 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.98, a P/E/G ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted 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 business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.33 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.74%. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 24.25%.

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.