Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Up 0.5% – Time to Buy?

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s stock price rose 0.5% on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $317.66 and last traded at $316.98. Approximately 616,279 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 91% from the average daily volume of 6,900,271 shares. The stock had previously closed at $315.31.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have issued reports on V shares. Royal Bank of Canada lifted their price target on Visa from $311.00 to $322.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. BNP Paribas upgraded Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Robert W. Baird raised their price target on shares of Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Compass Point started coverage on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $319.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised their target price on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $328.41.

Visa Stock Performance

The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The company has a market cap of $589.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.53, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $306.60 and a 200-day moving average price of $284.23.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share 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 company had revenue of $9.62 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.33 EPS. Visa’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.75%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other Visa news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the business’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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in V. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 6.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $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 7.7% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,601,135,000 after purchasing an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its position in shares of Visa by 2.4% during the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,833,981,000 after buying an additional 345,829 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc grew its holdings in Visa by 2.2% during the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,783,857,000 after buying an additional 312,286 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.