Compass Point Begins Coverage on Visa (NYSE:V)

Compass Point started coverage on shares of Visa (NYSE:V) in a research report report published on Wednesday morning, Marketbeat reports. The firm issued a buy rating and a $319.00 price objective on the credit-card processor’s stock.

V has been the topic of several other reports. Citigroup dropped their target price on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $319.00 and set a buy rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. BNP Paribas raised shares of Visa from a neutral rating to an outperform rating and set a $325.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Tuesday. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price objective on shares of Visa from $315.00 to $311.00 and set an outperform rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. William Blair raised shares of Visa to a strong-buy rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $290.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $309.54.

Visa Stock Up 0.3 %

NYSE V opened at $279.48 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 1.37 and a quick ratio of 1.37. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $266.53 and its 200 day simple moving average is $273.14. Visa has a 12 month low of $227.78 and a 12 month high of $290.96. The company has a market capitalization of $509.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.23, a PEG ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $2.42. The business had revenue of $8.90 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.92 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.72% and a return on equity of 51.94%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.16 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that Visa will post 9.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 9th were issued a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.74%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 9th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.24%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $148,687.06. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Visa

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Hilltop National Bank bought a new position in shares of Visa in the first quarter worth about $1,212,000. Absolute Capital Management LLC bought a new position in Visa during the 1st quarter valued at $404,000. SageView Advisory Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 40.4% in the fourth quarter. SageView Advisory Group LLC now owns 25,137 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,967,000 after purchasing an additional 7,236 shares during the last quarter. Davidson Capital Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.5% in the first quarter. Davidson Capital Management Inc. now owns 9,275 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,588,000 after purchasing an additional 44 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Empirical Finance LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.4% in the first quarter. Empirical Finance LLC now owns 45,724 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $12,761,000 after purchasing an additional 1,914 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.