Visa (NYSE:V) Given New $354.00 Price Target at Citigroup

Visa (NYSE:V) had its price objective hoisted by Citigroup from $326.00 to $354.00 in a report released on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a buy rating on the credit-card processor’s stock.

A number of other equities analysts also recently weighed in on V. Bank of America lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $308.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 17th. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price objective on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods lifted their target price on Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Finally, Macquarie increased their price target on Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $331.92.

Visa Trading Up 0.8 %

NYSE V opened at $309.24 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $576.08 billion, a PE ratio of 31.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $312.76 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $287.65. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. Visa has a 12 month low of $252.70 and a 12 month high of $321.61.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 business posted $2.33 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts expect that Visa will post 11.23 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, November 12th. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.76%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 24.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. 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 value of $668,602.87. Following the completion of 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 position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. International Assets Investment Management LLC lifted its stake in Visa by 45,189.4% in the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,683,101,000 after purchasing an additional 9,736,958 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% in the third quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,119,725,000 after buying an additional 4,166,905 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Visa by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 6.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $15,702,901,000 after acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 7.7% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is 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.