Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Up 0.9% – Here’s Why

Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) shot up 0.9% on Monday . The company traded as high as $320.59 and last traded at $319.97. 5,746,152 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 1% from the average session volume of 5,703,089 shares. The stock had previously closed at $317.25.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. Macquarie boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, November 4th. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Mizuho lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Four equities 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 company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $331.92.

Visa Price Performance

The company has a market cap of $603.12 billion, a PE ratio of 33.27, a P/E/G ratio of 2.15 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $313.59 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $289.09.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results 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 in the prior year, the business earned $2.33 EPS. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.73%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 24.25%.

Insider Activity

In other Visa news, 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 transaction of $668,602.87. Following 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 position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated 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 own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in V. State Street Corp boosted its stake in Visa by 4.5% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in shares of 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 during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Visa by 7.7% during 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 stake in Visa by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after buying an additional 345,829 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its position in 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 buying an additional 312,286 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is currently 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.