Royal Bank Of Canada Reaffirms “Outperform” Rating for Visa (NYSE:V)

Visa (NYSE:V)‘s stock had its “outperform” rating reaffirmed by analysts at Royal Bank Of Canada in a report issued on Friday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $395.00 target price on the credit-card processor’s stock. Royal Bank Of Canada’s price objective suggests a potential upside of 22.01% from the company’s previous close.

V has been the topic of a number of other reports. Truist Financial set a $374.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research report on Tuesday, January 20th. Citigroup upgraded Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 23rd. Cantor Fitzgerald raised Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. Redburn Partners set a $385.00 target price on Visa in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Bank of America upgraded Visa from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $382.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Thursday, December 11th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $392.19.

Visa Trading Down 2.4%

V stock traded down $8.06 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $323.74. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 5,360,295 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,222,515. The firm has a market capitalization of $589.77 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.71, a PEG ratio of 1.92 and a beta of 0.81. Visa has a 1 year low of $299.00 and a 1 year high of $375.51. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a current ratio of 1.08. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $338.87 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $341.79.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The credit-card processor reported $3.17 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.14 by $0.03. Visa had a net margin of 50.15% and a return on equity of 60.31%. The firm had revenue of $10.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.69 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.75 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 14.6% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts predict that Visa will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,172 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $325.93, for a total transaction of $707,919.96. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 26,413 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,608,789.09. This represents a 7.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Lloyd Carney sold 900 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $336.48, for a total transaction of $302,832.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 2,468 shares in the company, valued at approximately $830,432.64. The trade was a 26.72% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 24,042 shares of company stock worth $8,247,289. 0.12% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Sonoma Allocations LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa in the third quarter valued at about $710,000. AQR Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 1.8% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,241,348 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $438,196,000 after buying an additional 21,401 shares during the period. Precedent Wealth Partners LLC raised its position in Visa by 7.5% during the 2nd quarter. Precedent Wealth Partners LLC now owns 1,588 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $564,000 after buying an additional 111 shares during the last quarter. Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 5.9% in the 2nd quarter. Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors Inc. now owns 95,150 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $33,783,000 after acquiring an additional 5,295 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Consilium Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new position in Visa during the second quarter valued at $862,000. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Stories Impacting Visa

Here are the key news stories impacting Visa this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Quarterly results beat expectations: Q1 EPS $3.17 vs. $3.14 est.; revenue $10.90B vs. $10.69B, revenue +14.6% YoY; strong margins and ROE—management cited robust holiday payment volumes. Visa beats estimates on strong payment volumes (Reuters)
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst bullishness ramps up: Macquarie reaffirmed “outperform” with a $410 price target (≈26.5% upside from recent levels); William Blair reiterated Buy; Rothschild Redburn and Cantor Fitzgerald issued upgrades—these lift conviction on upside potential and long-term growth. Macquarie PT and analyst coverage (Benzinga) William Blair note (TipRanks)
• Positive Sentiment: Strategic growth initiatives: Visa is pushing into stablecoin settlement and crypto rails to capture settlement fees as blockchain payment volumes surge—this could open a higher-growth payments settlement revenue stream. Stablecoin settlement push (24/7 Wall St.)
• Positive Sentiment: Dividend action: Visa declared a $0.67 quarterly dividend (ex-dividend Feb 10; payable Mar 2), supporting the company’s shareholder-return profile despite a sub-1% yield—appealing to income-oriented investors.
• Neutral Sentiment: Strategic commentary and positioning: Management emphasized credentials, agentic commerce, B2B/P2P money movement and product-led growth on the earnings call—important long-term themes but execution/timing remain to be proven. Earnings commentary on credentials and strategy (PYMNTS)
• Neutral Sentiment: Investor materials available: Slide deck, press release and webcast were published with the Q1 results—useful for investors wanting detail on metrics and management commentary. Slide deck / press release
• Negative Sentiment: Reputational/policy noise: Media coverage around partnerships, rewards usage and political-profile stories (e.g., high-profile “gold card” and Trump-related rewards headlines) could create short-term PR or regulatory scrutiny that adds uncertainty to sentiment. High-profile media headlines (NYT/aggregated)

Visa Company Profile

Visa Inc is a global payments technology company that facilitates electronic funds transfers and digital commerce by connecting consumers, merchants, financial institutions and governments. The firm operates one of the world’s largest payment networks, providing processing, authorization, clearing and settlement services for credit, debit and prepaid card transactions. Visa’s network-based model enables partner banks and other issuers to offer branded payment products while Visa focuses on the infrastructure, standards and technologies that move money securely and efficiently around the world.

Visa’s product and service portfolio includes card-based payment products for consumers and businesses, real-time push-payment capabilities, tokenization and authentication services, fraud and risk-management tools, data analytics and APIs for fintech and merchant integration.