Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Down 0.5% – What’s Next?

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) shares fell 0.5% on Wednesday . The stock traded as low as $354.54 and last traded at $355.05. 932,485 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 83% from the average session volume of 5,610,846 shares. The stock had previously closed at $356.73.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on V. Robert W. Baird upped their price target on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 14th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upped their price target on shares of Visa from $360.00 to $400.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Finally, UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Visa has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $354.73.

Visa Price Performance

The stock has a market cap of $660.17 billion, a PE ratio of 35.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.35 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $326.92 and its 200-day moving average is $300.67.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 54.79% and a net margin of 54.27%. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.66%. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 23.79%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,332 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.62, for a total value of $815,313.84. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,488 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,569,094.56. This trade represents a 34.19 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’s 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 transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 58,056 shares of company stock valued at $19,830,050 over the last quarter. 0.13% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Visa by 4.6% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 159,405,343 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $50,378,465,000 after acquiring an additional 7,079,706 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.5% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.4% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 40,345,176 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $12,729,901,000 after purchasing an additional 1,689,926 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital International Investors grew its stake in Visa by 3.8% during the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,816,573 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $7,526,660,000 after buying an additional 866,596 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.