Wells Fargo & Company Issues Positive Forecast for Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price

Visa (NYSE:V) had its price target increased by Wells Fargo & Company from $325.00 to $360.00 in a research note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. They currently have an overweight rating on the credit-card processor’s stock.

V has been the subject of several other reports. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Mizuho increased their price target on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Citigroup upped their price objective on Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Susquehanna upped their price target on shares of Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 11th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $329.70.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of V opened at $314.91 on Friday. Visa has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $321.61. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $309.06 and a 200 day moving average price of $285.28. The company has a market cap of $586.64 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.36, a PEG ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its 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 net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $2.33 EPS. Visa’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that Visa will post 11.23 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.75%. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

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 transaction of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Visa

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. International Assets Investment Management LLC raised its stake in Visa by 45,189.4% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,683,101,000 after acquiring an additional 9,736,958 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% during the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,119,725,000 after purchasing an additional 4,166,905 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Visa by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its position in Visa by 6.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Visa by 7.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after buying an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

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.