Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Up 0.3% – What’s Next?

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) shot up 0.3% during trading on Thursday . The stock traded as high as $331.93 and last traded at $332.40. 1,430,360 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 79% from the average session volume of 6,828,401 shares. The stock had previously closed at $331.33.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have issued reports on V. Barclays raised their price target on Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, February 3rd. Bank of America upped their price objective 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. StockNews.com lowered Visa from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-one have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $355.84.

Visa Trading Up 0.8 %

The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $341.55 and its 200 day simple moving average is $319.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12. The company has a market capitalization of $620.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.94.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly 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%. Research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th were given a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.71%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, 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 transaction, the insider now owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at $12,789,689.82. This represents a 47.99 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 39,350 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $327.20, for a total transaction of $12,875,320.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 26,413 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,642,333.60. This trade represents a 59.84 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 143,205 shares of company stock worth $48,842,490 in the last 90 days. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Visa

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Howard Capital Management Group LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 0.6% in the 3rd quarter. Howard Capital Management Group LLC now owns 106,355 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $29,242,000 after buying an additional 610 shares in the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its holdings in Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 5,733,284 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,576,366,000 after acquiring an additional 411,210 shares during the period. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at $69,000. Passumpsic Savings Bank grew its stake in shares of Visa by 2.0% during the third quarter. Passumpsic Savings Bank now owns 9,137 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,512,000 after purchasing an additional 179 shares during the period. Finally, Virtu Financial LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 101.5% in the third quarter. Virtu Financial LLC now owns 44,984 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $12,368,000 after purchasing an additional 22,658 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.