KeyCorp Upgrades Visa (NYSE:V) to “Strong-Buy”

Visa (NYSE:V) was upgraded by investment analysts at KeyCorp to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note issued on Tuesday,Zacks.com reports.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports on V. Citigroup assumed coverage on Visa in a research note on Wednesday. They issued a “buy” rating and a $450.00 price objective on the stock. Robert W. Baird set a $410.00 price target on Visa and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 6th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. Barclays reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $408.00 price target (up from $396.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Finally, Macquarie upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $380.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Visa presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $392.75.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:V opened at $345.10 on Tuesday. The company’s 50-day moving average is $344.72 and its 200 day moving average is $347.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. The company has a market capitalization of $632.50 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.70, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.05 and a beta of 0.90. Visa has a fifty-two week low of $280.78 and a fifty-two week high of $375.51.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.85 by $0.13. The company had revenue of $10.17 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.82 billion. Visa had a net margin of 52.16% and a return on equity of 58.93%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 14.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $2.42 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Visa will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other Visa news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,027 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $344.02, for a total value of $697,328.54. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel owned 11,925 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,102,438.50. The trade was a 14.53% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $342.30, for a total value of $3,589,015.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 537 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $183,815.10. This trade represents a 95.13% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of V. Keystone Global Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter valued at about $26,000. von Borstel & Associates Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter valued at about $27,000. Family Legacy Financial Solutions LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the 2nd quarter valued at about $28,000. Harbor Asset Planning Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the 2nd quarter valued at about $29,000. Finally, Sagard Holdings Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the 2nd quarter valued at about $31,000. 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.