Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Receives Average Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) has been given an average rating of “Moderate Buy” by the twenty-nine analysts that are currently covering the firm, MarketBeat reports. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1 year target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $329.70.

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Citigroup lifted their target price on Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. TD Cowen raised their target price on shares of Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Oppenheimer boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, November 4th.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Umpqua Bank increased its stake in Visa by 4.9% during the 2nd quarter. Umpqua Bank now owns 9,402 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,468,000 after buying an additional 440 shares during the period. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 11,135.8% in the second quarter. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC now owns 403,365 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $105,871,000 after acquiring an additional 399,775 shares in the last quarter. Cross Staff Investments Inc boosted its holdings in Visa by 2.3% in the second quarter. Cross Staff Investments Inc now owns 5,917 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,553,000 after purchasing an additional 132 shares during the last quarter. Asset Dedication LLC boosted its holdings in Visa by 4.5% in the second quarter. Asset Dedication LLC now owns 29,333 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $7,699,000 after purchasing an additional 1,271 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Otter Creek Advisors LLC grew its stake in Visa by 17.9% during the 2nd quarter. Otter Creek Advisors LLC now owns 18,433 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $4,838,000 after purchasing an additional 2,800 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

NYSE V opened at $314.91 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $586.64 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.36, a P/E/G ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. Visa has a 1-year low of $252.70 and a 1-year 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 50-day moving average of $309.73 and a two-hundred day moving average of $285.76.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.33 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts anticipate that Visa will post 11.23 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

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

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.