Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Up 0.5% After Analyst Upgrade

Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) shot up 0.5% on Friday after Susquehanna raised their price target on the stock from $395.00 to $410.00. Susquehanna currently has a positive rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $352.67 and last traded at $352.38. 1,481,639 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 73% from the average session volume of 5,587,317 shares. The stock had previously closed at $350.49.

V has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Citigroup boosted their price objective on Visa from $354.00 to $393.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $340.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Bank of America increased their price target on Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Finally, William Blair reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Four equities research 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.com, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $355.31.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In related news, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total value of $11,801,589.57. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,789,689.82. The trade was a 47.99 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through 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. Insiders sold 55,885 shares of company stock valued at $19,161,447 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Hirtle Callaghan & Co LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.3% in the fourth quarter. Hirtle Callaghan & Co LLC now owns 2,291 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $724,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during the period. FWL Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. FWL Investment Management LLC now owns 6,344 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,005,000 after acquiring an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 3.3% in the 4th quarter. Elevation Wealth Partners LLC now owns 939 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $297,000 after buying an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. Warther Private Wealth LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 1.0% during the 4th quarter. Warther Private Wealth LLC now owns 2,935 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $928,000 after acquiring an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Valmark Advisers Inc. boosted its position in shares of Visa by 0.4% during the 4th quarter. Valmark Advisers Inc. now owns 7,251 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,292,000 after acquiring an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Visa Stock Performance

The stock has a market cap of $655.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.54, a P/E/G ratio of 2.36 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $328.47 and a 200 day simple moving average of $301.39.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.67%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 23.79%.

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.