Visa (NYSE:V) Trading Up 0.4% – Time to Buy?

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s share price shot up 0.4% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $314.51 and last traded at $314.39. 988,375 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 77% from the average session volume of 4,239,184 shares. The stock had previously closed at $313.04.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts have weighed in on V shares. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price objective on Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. TD Cowen boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $329.70.

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 firm has a market capitalization of $582.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.16, a P/E/G ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The company’s 50 day moving average is $310.30 and its 200-day moving average is $286.01.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.33 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.75%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the 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 sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. The trade was 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 Investors Weigh In On Visa

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in Visa by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC lifted its stake in Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Visa by 7.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,601,135,000 after purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its position in shares of Visa by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,833,981,000 after purchasing an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.2% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,783,857,000 after purchasing an additional 312,286 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.