Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Up 1.7% on Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) shot up 1.7% during trading on Thursday after Morgan Stanley raised their price target on the stock from $326.00 to $371.00. Morgan Stanley currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $316.87 and last traded at $315.01. 1,514,998 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 78% from the average session volume of 6,882,979 shares. The stock had previously closed at $309.78.

Several other brokerages also recently commented on V. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $321.00 target price (up previously from $318.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $317.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, September 12th. Mizuho lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Piper Sandler increased their price objective on shares of Visa from $319.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $326.41.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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. This represents a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Arjuna Capital boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.8% in the 2nd quarter. Arjuna Capital now owns 11,851 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,111,000 after buying an additional 96 shares in the last quarter. Custom Index Systems LLC acquired a new position in Visa during the third quarter worth $731,000. Copley Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in Visa during the third quarter worth about $616,000. FORA Capital LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $7,987,000. Finally, Chicago Capital LLC lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 5.2% during the third quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $111,331,000 after buying an additional 20,023 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $586.00 billion, a PE ratio of 32.33, a P/E/G ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $301.66 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $281.98.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results 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 business had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.49 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.33 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.75%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

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.