Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Up 1.1% – Should You Buy?

Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) traded up 1.1% on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $321.54 and last traded at $320.65. 2,684,103 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 61% from the average session volume of 6,969,813 shares. The stock had previously closed at $317.22.

Analyst Ratings Changes

V has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Mizuho raised their price objective on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Oppenheimer boosted their target price on Visa from $321.00 to $375.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Citigroup raised their target price on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock a “buy” 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.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $328.41.

Visa Stock Up 1.1 %

The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $304.77 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $283.24. 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 $597.33 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced 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. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The firm’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.33 EPS. On average, equities analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 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. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid 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 0.74%. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’s 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 completion of the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Arjuna Capital raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.8% during the second quarter. Arjuna Capital now owns 11,851 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,111,000 after buying an additional 96 shares during the last quarter. Custom Index Systems LLC bought a new position in shares of Visa in the third quarter worth $731,000. Copley Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the third quarter valued at $616,000. FORA Capital LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the third quarter valued at about $7,987,000. Finally, Chicago Capital LLC increased its stake in Visa by 5.2% during the 3rd quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $111,331,000 after buying an additional 20,023 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.