Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Up 0.3% – Here’s What Happened

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s share price traded up 0.3% during trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $336.31 and last traded at $336.76. 1,815,983 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 73% from the average session volume of 6,846,496 shares. The stock had previously closed at $335.81.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Citigroup restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. StockNews.com cut shares of Visa from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, Evercore ISI initiated coverage on Visa in a report on Wednesday, April 9th. They set an “in-line” rating and a $330.00 price objective on the stock. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-one have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $355.84.

Visa Stock Performance

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 stock has a 50-day moving average price of $341.11 and a 200 day moving average price of $320.08. The company has a market cap 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.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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%. As a group, analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 11th were given a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.72%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.79%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $350.44, for a total value of $3,020,792.80. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 537 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $188,186.28. The trade was a 94.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the insider now owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at $12,789,689.82. The trade was a 47.99 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 143,205 shares of company stock valued at $48,842,490 in the last quarter. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at $5,171,271,000. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its stake in Visa by 38,416.3% in the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 14,761,375 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,173,271,000 after purchasing an additional 14,723,050 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings 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 period. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in Visa during the fourth quarter worth approximately $1,955,403,000. Finally, Proficio Capital Partners LLC raised its stake in Visa by 17,018.7% in the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 3,949,118 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,248,079,000 after buying an additional 3,926,049 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.