Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Receives Consensus Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) have been given an average rating of “Moderate Buy” by the twenty-eight brokerages that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. The average twelve-month price objective among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $330.85.

V has been the topic of several analyst reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their target price on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Citigroup raised their price objective on Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 18th. Mizuho raised their price target on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th.

Visa Stock Down 1.6 %

Shares of Visa stock opened at $307.71 on Monday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $312.14 and a 200 day simple moving average of $286.85. The stock has a market cap of $573.23 billion, a PE ratio of 31.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. Visa has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $321.61.

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. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.33 EPS. Research analysts predict that Visa will post 11.23 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.77%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction 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 sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp grew its position in shares of Visa by 4.5% during the 3rd 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 in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its position in 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 buying an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in 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 acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. increased 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 during the period. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc raised its holdings in Visa by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after acquiring an additional 312,286 shares in the last quarter. 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.