Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Down 0.9%

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) dropped 0.9% during trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as low as $277.70 and last traded at $278.12. Approximately 1,110,502 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 80% from the average daily volume of 5,577,244 shares. The stock had previously closed at $280.60.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $290.00 to $309.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Monness Crespi & Hardt started coverage on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, December 20th. They set a “neutral” rating on the stock. Raymond James lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $287.00 to $311.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, January 26th. KeyCorp lifted their target price on Visa from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, January 8th. Finally, Susquehanna boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $326.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a report on Friday, January 26th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $295.82.

Visa Stock Down 1.2 %

The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $278.54 and its 200-day simple moving average is $258.27. The company has a market cap of $509.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.94, a P/E/G ratio of 1.94 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 1.45 and a quick ratio of 1.45.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.34 by $0.07. Visa had a return on equity of 50.02% and a net margin of 53.92%. The firm had revenue of $8.63 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.55 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.18 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 9.9 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 9th were given a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 8th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.75%. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.94%.

Insider Activity

In other Visa news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total transaction of $729,271.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,898 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,365,954.24. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total value of $729,271.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,898 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,365,954.24. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,150 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $273.39, for a total transaction of $2,228,128.50. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 47,311 shares of company stock valued at $12,832,129. Company insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of V. Hibernia Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new stake in Visa in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. Altshuler Shaham Ltd purchased a new stake in Visa in the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Livelsberger Financial Advisory acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter worth $25,000. West Tower Group LLC acquired a new position in Visa in the second quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, O Brien Wealth Partners LLC purchased a new stake in Visa during the fourth quarter valued at about $32,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

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.