Visa (NYSE:V) Trading 1.2% Higher – Here’s What Happened

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s share price shot up 1.2% during mid-day trading on Friday . The stock traded as high as $309.54 and last traded at $309.41. 856,733 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 88% from the average session volume of 7,025,599 shares. The stock had previously closed at $305.80.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have commented on V. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their price objective on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Visa from $290.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Visa from $322.00 to $326.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. William Blair upgraded Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 23rd. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $321.74.

Visa Price Performance

The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $282.69 and its 200-day moving average price is $274.20. The company has a quick ratio of 1.37, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The stock has a market cap of $561.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.80, a PEG ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $2.33 EPS. Analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.18 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be given a dividend of $0.59 per share. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.77%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 21.38%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total value of $2,382,309.40. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $148,687.06. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 0.19% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Visa by 0.6% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 142,202,830 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $39,685,966,000 after purchasing an additional 788,908 shares during the period. Capital International Investors increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.7% in the 1st quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,570,391 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,578,025,000 after acquiring an additional 626,618 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors boosted its holdings 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 in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. raised its holdings in Visa by 2.4% during the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after purchasing an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after buying an additional 312,286 shares in the last quarter. 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.