Royal Bank of Canada Boosts Visa (NYSE:V) Price Target to $315.00

Visa (NYSE:V) had its price target hoisted by analysts at Royal Bank of Canada from $309.00 to $315.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “outperform” rating on the credit-card processor’s stock. Royal Bank of Canada’s price objective suggests a potential upside of 14.20% from the company’s previous close.

Other equities research analysts have also issued research reports about the stock. KeyCorp raised their target price on shares of Visa from $275.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, January 8th. Oppenheimer increased their price target on Visa from $297.00 to $299.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on Visa from $325.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 26th. William Blair reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Barclays upped their price target on shares of Visa from $304.00 to $319.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, January 29th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $302.70.

Visa Price Performance

V traded up $1.73 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $275.84. 4,300,796 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 5,854,733. Visa has a 12-month low of $216.14 and a 12-month high of $290.96. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $279.49 and a 200 day simple moving average of $263.90. 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 cap of $506.58 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.77, a PEG ratio of 1.88 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.51 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.43 by $0.08. Visa had a return on equity of 50.02% and a net margin of 53.92%. The business had revenue of $8.78 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.62 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.09 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts forecast that Visa will post 9.88 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,150 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. In other news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total transaction of $729,271.20. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly 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 is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,150 shares of the 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 18,965 shares of company stock valued at $5,256,352. Corporate insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. FMR LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 4.7% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 50,357,747 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $11,582,785,000 after purchasing an additional 2,257,605 shares during the period. Capital International Investors lifted its stake in Visa by 2.7% during the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 22,943,773 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,973,432,000 after acquiring an additional 596,950 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors boosted its holdings in Visa by 8.0% during the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 17,895,788 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $4,659,169,000 after acquiring an additional 1,323,238 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp grew its position in Visa by 4.7% in the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 17,073,700 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,927,122,000 after acquiring an additional 763,505 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Visa during the fourth quarter worth about $3,895,015,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

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.