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

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) has received an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-nine ratings firms that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average 12-month target price among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $321.74.

V has been the topic of several analyst reports. Susquehanna lifted their price objective on Visa from $326.00 to $339.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Citigroup increased their price objective on Visa from $319.00 to $326.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. TD Cowen lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price target 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. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of Visa from a “moderate buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th.

Visa Stock Performance

NYSE:V opened at $309.92 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $577.34 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.85, a PEG ratio of 2.08 and a beta of 0.95. The business has a 50 day moving average of $289.52 and a 200 day moving average of $277.34. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28. Visa has a 1-year low of $251.61 and a 1-year high of $312.44.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The company 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 quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.33 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Visa will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared 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. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.76%. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.25%.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s 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 $148,687.06. This trade represents a 94.13 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, the insider now directly 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in V. International Assets Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 45,189.4% in the 3rd quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,683,101,000 after acquiring an additional 9,736,958 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% in the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,119,725,000 after purchasing an additional 4,166,905 shares in the last quarter. National Bank of Canada FI raised its position in shares of Visa by 787.1% during the 1st quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 4,619,881 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,296,820,000 after purchasing an additional 4,099,122 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. Finally, FMR LLC increased its stake in Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.