Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Up 0.4% – Still a Buy?

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s share price shot up 0.4% during trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $314.04 and last traded at $312.94. 1,233,059 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 72% from the average session volume of 4,451,945 shares. The stock had previously closed at $311.67.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

V has been the topic of several analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Piper Sandler increased their target price on Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Mizuho lifted their price target on Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Macquarie increased their price target on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $329.70.

Visa Stock Up 0.3 %

The firm’s fifty day moving average is $310.90 and its 200-day moving average is $286.27. The stock has a market capitalization of $582.58 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.14, a PEG ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. 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 (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $2.33 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.75%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 24.25%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa 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 transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $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. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in V. Custom Index Systems LLC acquired a new stake in Visa during the third quarter valued at approximately $731,000. Copley Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter valued at $616,000. FORA Capital LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter worth $7,987,000. Chicago Capital LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 5.2% in the 3rd quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $111,331,000 after acquiring an additional 20,023 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nexus Investment Management ULC raised its position in shares of Visa by 5,034.0% during the third quarter. Nexus Investment Management ULC now owns 56,371 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,499,000 after purchasing an additional 55,273 shares during the period. 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.