Visa (NYSE:V) Trading 0.5% Higher After Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) rose 0.5% during mid-day trading on Friday after Susquehanna raised their price target on the stock from $395.00 to $410.00. Susquehanna currently has a positive rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $352.67 and last traded at $352.38. Approximately 1,481,639 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 73% from the average daily volume of 5,587,317 shares. The stock had previously closed at $350.49.

V has been the subject of several other research reports. Mizuho boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets increased their price target on shares of Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $355.31.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total transaction of $815,313.84. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,488 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,569,094.56. The trade was a 34.19 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 55,885 shares of company stock worth $19,161,447. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at $5,171,271,000. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its position in shares of Visa by 45,189.4% during the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,683,101,000 after buying an additional 9,736,958 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.6% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 159,405,343 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $50,378,465,000 after acquiring an additional 7,079,706 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new position in Visa in the fourth quarter worth about $1,955,403,000. Finally, Proficio Capital Partners LLC increased its stake in Visa by 17,018.7% during the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 3,949,118 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,248,079,000 after acquiring an additional 3,926,049 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

The firm has a market capitalization of $655.22 billion, a PE ratio of 35.54, a P/E/G ratio of 2.36 and a beta of 0.97. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $328.47 and a 200-day simple moving average of $301.39. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly 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 return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. Equities research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

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

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.