Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Up 0.9% – Here’s What Happened

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) shares shot up 0.9% on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $322.90 and last traded at $322.53. 1,309,043 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 76% from the average session volume of 5,361,119 shares. The stock had previously closed at $319.62.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently weighed in on V shares. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Susquehanna upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Jefferies Financial Group upped 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. Finally, BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on shares of 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-four have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $332.81.

Visa Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $611.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.17 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 stock has a 50-day moving average price of $314.14 and a 200 day moving average price of $289.71.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The business’s revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $2.33 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.72%. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s payout ratio is 24.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was 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 directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in V. Peterson Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in Visa during the 3rd quarter valued at about $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. purchased a new position in Visa during the 4th quarter valued at about $26,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in Visa during the 3rd quarter valued at about $31,000. Modus Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Visa during the 4th quarter valued at about $32,000. Finally, West Financial Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 101.4% during the 3rd quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 145 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $40,000 after purchasing an additional 73 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.