Visa (NYSE:V) Trading Up 0.7% – Time to Buy?

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) shares traded up 0.7% during trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $347.24 and last traded at $347.10. 880,428 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 87% from the average session volume of 6,682,225 shares. The stock had previously closed at $344.62.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts recently weighed in on V shares. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. William Blair reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, Citigroup restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Six 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 stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

Visa Stock Performance

The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $341.94 and its 200 day moving average price is $314.21. The firm has a market capitalization of $639.33 billion, a PE ratio of 34.73, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. On average, research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 11th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 39,350 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $340.41, for a total transaction of $13,395,133.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 26,413 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,991,249.33. This represents a 59.84 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 143,205 shares of company stock valued at $48,560,961 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Riverstone Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $217,000. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC raised its stake in Visa by 16.4% during the 4th quarter. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC now owns 9,678 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,058,000 after purchasing an additional 1,361 shares during the last quarter. King Wealth Management Group boosted its holdings in Visa by 9.0% in the 4th quarter. King Wealth Management Group now owns 74,874 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $23,663,000 after purchasing an additional 6,172 shares during the period. Generali Investments CEE investicni spolecnost a.s. acquired a new stake in Visa in the 4th quarter worth $10,163,000. Finally, Copley Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter worth about $616,000. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.