Visa (NYSE:V) Trading Up 0.6% After Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s stock price shot up 0.6% during trading on Wednesday after Susquehanna raised their price target on the stock from $339.00 to $375.00. Susquehanna currently has a positive rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $315.55 and last traded at $314.41. 1,214,816 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 82% from the average session volume of 6,895,596 shares. The stock had previously closed at $312.38.

V has been the subject of several other reports. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price objective on Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday. Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. TD Cowen upped 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. Robert W. Baird raised their price target on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $324.74.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Corporate insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of V. Arjuna Capital lifted its position in shares of Visa by 0.8% during the 2nd quarter. Arjuna Capital now owns 11,851 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,111,000 after buying an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Custom Index Systems LLC purchased a new stake in Visa in the third quarter valued at $731,000. FORA Capital LLC acquired a new position in Visa in the third quarter valued at $7,987,000. Chicago Capital LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 5.2% during the third quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $111,331,000 after purchasing an additional 20,023 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Baader Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased its position in shares of Visa by 9.3% during the second quarter. Baader Bank Aktiengesellschaft now owns 58,655 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,299,000 after purchasing an additional 4,988 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

The firm has a market capitalization of $584.39 billion, a PE ratio of 32.31, a P/E/G ratio of 2.07 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $297.08 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $280.24. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55.

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 business had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.33 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

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