Visa (NYSE:V) Reaches New 1-Year High After Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s share price hit a new 52-week high on Tuesday after Bank of America raised their price target on the stock from $279.00 to $308.00. Bank of America currently has a neutral rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $291.00 and last traded at $291.00, with a volume of 3415 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $290.48.

Several other analysts have also recently issued reports on the stock. Compass Point began coverage on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. They set a “buy” rating and a $319.00 target price on the stock. TD Cowen decreased their price objective on Visa from $320.00 to $318.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $322.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Piper Sandler decreased their price target on Visa from $322.00 to $319.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, Macquarie reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $300.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Visa has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $310.22.

Insider Activity at Visa

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $148,687.06. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of V. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Visa by 0.6% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 142,202,830 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $39,685,966,000 after buying an additional 788,908 shares during the last quarter. Capital International Investors increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.7% during the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,570,391 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,578,025,000 after acquiring an additional 626,618 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors raised its position in shares of Visa by 5.4% in the 1st quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 18,863,796 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,264,508,000 after purchasing an additional 968,008 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its position in shares of Visa by 2.4% in the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,833,981,000 after purchasing an additional 345,829 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc boosted its stake in Visa by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,783,857,000 after purchasing an additional 312,286 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The company has a market cap of $525.66 billion, a PE ratio of 32.23, a P/E/G ratio of 2.05 and a beta of 0.96. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $269.81 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $273.38.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $2.42. The firm had revenue of $8.90 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.92 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 51.94% and a net margin of 54.72%. The firm’s revenue was up 9.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.16 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 9.92 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, August 9th were paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.72%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, August 9th. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.24%.

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.