Visa’s (V) Neutral Rating Reiterated at Bank of America

Bank of America reaffirmed their neutral rating on shares of Visa (NYSE:V) in a research note released on Wednesday morning, MarketBeat.com reports. The firm currently has a $297.00 target price on the credit-card processor’s stock, down from their prior target price of $305.00.

Several other equities research analysts have also recently weighed in on V. Mizuho upped their price target on Visa from $265.00 to $275.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Thursday, May 2nd. Oppenheimer upped their price target on Visa from $297.00 to $299.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. Macquarie upped their price target on Visa from $290.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. UBS Group upped their price target on Visa from $315.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. Finally, William Blair reiterated an outperform rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-one have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $304.44.

Visa Price Performance

Visa stock opened at $265.61 on Wednesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $485.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.68, a PEG ratio of 1.80 and a beta of 0.95. Visa has a 52-week low of $227.68 and a 52-week high of $290.96. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $272.82 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $273.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 1.40 and a current ratio of 1.40.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.51 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.43 by $0.08. Visa had a return on equity of 51.23% and a net margin of 53.87%. The company had revenue of $8.78 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.62 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $2.09 EPS. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 9.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts predict that Visa will post 9.94 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 3rd. Stockholders of record on Friday, May 17th were given a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.78%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, May 16th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 23.24%.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 25,293 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $277.15, for a total value of $7,009,954.95. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,959,322.10. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 25,293 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, May 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $277.15, for a total value of $7,009,954.95. Following the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,959,322.10. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Lloyd Carney sold 909 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $275.55, for a total value of $250,474.95. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 2,591 shares in the company, valued at approximately $713,950.05. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in Visa by 0.6% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 142,202,830 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $39,685,966,000 after purchasing an additional 788,908 shares during the period. Capital International Investors raised its position in Visa by 2.7% in the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,570,391 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,578,025,000 after purchasing an additional 626,618 shares during the period. Capital World Investors raised its position in Visa by 5.4% in the first quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 18,863,796 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,264,508,000 after purchasing an additional 968,008 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at about $3,895,015,000. Finally, Jennison Associates LLC raised its position in Visa by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 11,824,113 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,078,408,000 after purchasing an additional 85,123 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.