Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Up 2.1% After Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s share price shot up 2.1% during trading on Wednesday after Seaport Res Ptn upgraded the stock from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating. The company traded as high as $316.42 and last traded at $315.72. 1,497,562 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 72% from the average session volume of 5,437,135 shares. The stock had previously closed at $309.09.

Other equities analysts have also issued reports about the company. Oppenheimer increased their price target on Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Susquehanna raised their price objective on Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 11th. Macquarie raised their price objective on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their price objective on Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $331.92.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa 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 completion of 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. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the 4th quarter worth $26,000. Peterson Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter worth $26,000. Modus Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the 4th quarter worth $32,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the 3rd quarter worth $31,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC boosted its position in shares of Visa by 101.4% in the 3rd quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 145 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $40,000 after purchasing an additional 73 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Visa Price Performance

The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The stock has a market cap of $589.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.52, a PEG ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $312.76 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $287.65.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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 firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $2.33 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.75%. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 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.