Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Receives Average Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) has earned a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-six brokerages that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat reports. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, seventeen have issued a buy rating and four have given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price objective among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $400.00.

V has been the subject of several research reports. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $408.00 price objective (up previously from $396.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Citigroup raised Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 23rd. KeyCorp restated an “overweight” rating and set a $405.00 price target on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft started coverage on Visa in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $410.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, Morgan Stanley set a $398.00 target price on Visa and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th.

Visa Price Performance

V stock opened at $335.91 on Friday. Visa has a one year low of $299.00 and a one year high of $375.51. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $343.52 and its 200-day moving average price is $348.74. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.08. The company has a market capitalization of $615.66 billion, a PE ratio of 32.90, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.03 and a beta of 0.87.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 28th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.97 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $10.72 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.60 billion. Visa had a net margin of 50.15% and a return on equity of 60.31%. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 11.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.71 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Visa will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 1st. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 12th will be given a dividend of $0.67 per share. This represents a $2.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.8%. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.59. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, November 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.11%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $341.00, for a total value of $3,575,385.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 537 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $183,117. This trade represents a 95.13% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director Lloyd Carney sold 900 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $336.48, for a total transaction of $302,832.00. Following the sale, the director owned 2,468 shares in the company, valued at $830,432.64. This represents a 26.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold 23,897 shares of company stock valued at $8,164,561 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Visa during the second quarter worth $7,034,939,000. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Visa in the first quarter valued at $3,518,533,000. TCI Fund Management Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 14.6% in the 2nd quarter. TCI Fund Management Ltd. now owns 19,067,558 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $6,769,936,000 after acquiring an additional 2,429,996 shares during the last quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 110.4% in the 2nd quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 3,954,937 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,396,930,000 after acquiring an additional 2,075,289 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 1.1% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 161,082,431 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $56,452,949,000 after purchasing an additional 1,677,088 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.