Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Up 0.7% – Here’s Why

Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) were up 0.7% on Monday . The stock traded as high as $317.24 and last traded at $316.96. Approximately 1,134,438 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 83% from the average daily volume of 6,859,983 shares. The stock had previously closed at $314.74.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have issued reports on the company. Citigroup lifted their price objective on Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Bank of America increased their price target on Visa from $279.00 to $308.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 17th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Visa has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $326.41.

Visa Stock Down 2.7 %

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $301.00 and its 200 day simple moving average is $281.78. The stock has a market capitalization of $577.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.84, a P/E/G ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate 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% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.33 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.76%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 0.19% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of V. State Street Corp lifted its stake 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 buying an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Visa by 7.7% during the third 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 last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.4% during the second 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 grew its position in shares of Visa by 2.2% in the second 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 purchasing an additional 312,286 shares during 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.