Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Receives Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) has received a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-nine brokerages that are covering the firm, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-two have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating on the company. The average 1-year price objective among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $353.96.

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Bank of America increased their target price on shares of Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. William Blair reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Robert W. Baird increased 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, Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE V opened at $349.46 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. Visa has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $357.15. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $329.81 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $303.29. The stock has a market cap of $649.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.23, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a net margin of 54.27% and a return on equity of 54.79%. As a group, analysts predict that Visa will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.68%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.79%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total value of $815,313.84. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 4,488 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,569,094.56. This trade represents a 34.19 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 55,885 shares of company stock valued at $19,161,447 over the last 90 days. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $5,171,271,000. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in Visa by 4.6% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 159,405,343 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $50,378,465,000 after acquiring an additional 7,079,706 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,955,403,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 17,018.7% in the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 3,949,118 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,248,079,000 after acquiring an additional 3,926,049 shares in the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp raised its holdings 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 in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

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.