Visa (NYSE:V) Sets New 12-Month High – Still a Buy?

Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) hit a new 52-week high on Thursday . The stock traded as high as $360.27 and last traded at $358.66, with a volume of 1407529 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $350.63.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have commented on the company. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Bank of America increased their price target on shares of Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Mizuho increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Piper Sandler reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $383.00 price objective (up previously from $368.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Visa presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

Visa Stock Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. The stock has a market cap of $659.03 billion, a PE ratio of 35.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $331.31 and a 200 day moving average price of $304.27.

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

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be given a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.67%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total value of $815,313.84. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,488 shares in the company, valued at $1,569,094.56. The trade was a 34.19 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total value of $11,801,589.57. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,789,689.82. This represents a 47.99 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 55,885 shares of company stock worth $19,161,447 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Visa by 4.6% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 159,405,343 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $50,378,465,000 after purchasing an additional 7,079,706 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its holdings in Visa by 4.5% during the third 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 boosted its position in shares of Visa by 6.1% during 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 purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.4% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 40,345,176 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $12,729,901,000 after purchasing an additional 1,689,926 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital International Investors boosted its stake in Visa by 3.8% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,816,573 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $7,526,660,000 after purchasing an additional 866,596 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other 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.