Visa (NYSE:V) Rating Lowered to Hold at StockNews.com

StockNews.com cut shares of Visa (NYSE:V) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note published on Wednesday.

Several other equities research analysts have also commented on the stock. Evercore ISI assumed coverage on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, April 9th. They set an “in-line” rating and a $330.00 price objective on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $383.00 target price (up from $368.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Bank of America lifted their price target on Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-one have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $355.84.

Visa Stock Down 0.6 %

V stock opened at $329.26 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $611.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.19, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.94. 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 business’s 50 day moving average price is $340.68 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $320.44. Visa has a fifty-two week low of $252.70 and a fifty-two week high of $366.54.

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

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.72%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In related news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,572 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total value of $874,480.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel now owns 11,925 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,054,500. This represents a 17.74 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total value of $11,801,589.57. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,789,689.82. This represents a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 143,205 shares of company stock valued at $48,842,490 over the last quarter. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Riverstone Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter valued at about $217,000. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 16.4% during the fourth quarter. Journey Strategic Wealth LLC now owns 9,678 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,058,000 after buying an additional 1,361 shares during the last quarter. King Wealth Management Group grew its holdings in Visa by 9.0% during 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 buying an additional 6,172 shares in the last quarter. Generali Investments CEE investicni spolecnost a.s. bought a new stake in Visa in the 4th quarter worth approximately $10,163,000. Finally, Copley Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $616,000. 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.