Visa (NYSE:V) Trading Up 0.1% on Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s stock price rose 0.1% during trading on Thursday after Robert W. Baird raised their price target on the stock from $314.00 to $320.00. Robert W. Baird currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $273.15 and last traded at $272.97. Approximately 722,605 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 87% from the average daily volume of 5,733,616 shares. The stock had previously closed at $272.69.

Several other brokerages also recently commented on V. William Blair reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Monness Crespi & Hardt initiated coverage on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, December 20th. They set a “neutral” rating for the company. Mizuho reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $265.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, March 27th. Barclays increased their price target on shares of Visa from $304.00 to $319.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, January 29th. Finally, Evercore ISI increased their price target on shares of Visa from $325.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 26th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $298.43.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,150 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $273.39, for a total value of $2,228,128.50. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. In other news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of Visa 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 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 filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,150 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on 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. Insiders have sold a total of 55,511 shares of company stock worth $15,131,081 over the last 90 days. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of V. BCK Partners Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter valued at $2,717,000. Markel Corp increased its holdings in Visa by 0.3% in the 1st quarter. Markel Corp now owns 961,105 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $213,144,000 after acquiring an additional 3,065 shares during the last quarter. AMI Investment Management Inc. bought a new stake in Visa in the 1st quarter valued at $2,323,000. Ergoteles LLC bought a new stake in Visa in the 1st quarter valued at $538,000. Finally, XTX Topco Ltd bought a new stake in Visa in the 1st quarter valued at $1,496,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.45 and a current ratio of 1.45. The company has a market capitalization of $501.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.41, a P/E/G ratio of 1.87 and a beta of 0.96. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $279.80 and its 200-day simple moving average is $262.56.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.34 by $0.07. Visa had a net margin of 53.92% and a return on equity of 50.02%. The business had revenue of $8.63 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.55 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.18 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 9.88 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Investors of record on Friday, February 9th were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 8th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.76%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.94%.

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.