Visa (NYSE:V) Trading Up 0.9% – Time to Buy?

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) shot up 0.9% during trading on Thursday . The company traded as high as $316.37 and last traded at $314.70. 5,204,318 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 26% from the average session volume of 6,985,911 shares. The stock had previously closed at $311.82.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have issued reports on V shares. Jefferies Financial Group increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on shares of Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Bank of America boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $308.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. Piper Sandler lifted their target price on Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft increased their price target on Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Visa presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $321.74.

Visa Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a current ratio of 1.28. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $290.89 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $278.06. The firm has a market capitalization of $586.25 billion, a PE ratio of 32.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.10 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data 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. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The company had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $2.33 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.75%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 24.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was 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 directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This trade represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $148,687.06. The trade was a 94.13 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 6.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. lifted its position in shares of Visa by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,833,981,000 after acquiring an additional 345,829 shares during the period. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 2.2% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,783,857,000 after acquiring an additional 312,286 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.