Visa (NYSE:V) Trading 1.7% Higher After Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s share price shot up 1.7% during mid-day trading on Thursday after Oppenheimer raised their price target on the stock from $321.00 to $375.00. Oppenheimer currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $316.87 and last traded at $315.01. 1,514,998 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 78% from the average session volume of 6,882,979 shares. The stock had previously closed at $309.78.

V has been the subject of several other reports. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Citigroup upped their price target on Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Susquehanna lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 11th. TD Cowen increased their target price on shares of Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Monness Crespi & Hardt reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $328.41.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. 0.19% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Arjuna Capital grew its stake in Visa by 0.8% in the second quarter. Arjuna Capital now owns 11,851 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,111,000 after purchasing an additional 96 shares during the period. Custom Index Systems LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $731,000. Copley Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in Visa during the third quarter valued at $616,000. FORA Capital LLC purchased a new position in Visa during the third quarter valued at $7,987,000. Finally, Chicago Capital LLC boosted its holdings in Visa by 5.2% in the third quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $111,331,000 after acquiring an additional 20,023 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $302.41 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $282.21. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The stock has a market capitalization of $586.58 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.36, a P/E/G ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The business had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.33 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.75%. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.25%.

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.