Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Up 0.6% – Still a Buy?

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) traded up 0.6% on Friday . The company traded as high as $318.64 and last traded at $319.21. 1,678,028 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 69% from the average session volume of 5,364,677 shares. The stock had previously closed at $317.25.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on V. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Macquarie increased their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their price objective on Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Four 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 company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $331.92.

Visa Stock Performance

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 firm has a 50-day moving average of $313.41 and a two-hundred day moving average of $288.45. The company has a market capitalization of $596.06 billion, a PE ratio of 32.88, a PEG ratio of 2.06 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 for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.33 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.22 EPS 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 given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.74%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.25%.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’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 transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly 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 owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Peterson Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in Visa during the third quarter worth about $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the 4th quarter worth approximately $26,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the third quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Modus Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC lifted its position in Visa by 101.4% during the third quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 145 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $40,000 after buying an additional 73 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other 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.