Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Up 1.9% – Should You Buy?

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) traded up 1.9% on Wednesday . The stock traded as high as $313.94 and last traded at $313.0160. 7,613,453 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 10% from the average session volume of 8,505,697 shares. The stock had previously closed at $307.22.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. UBS Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Tuesday, January 13th. Macquarie Infrastructure reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $410.00 target price on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 30th. Daiwa Securities Group raised Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $370.00 price target for the company in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Evercore set a $380.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research report on Friday, December 12th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Visa currently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $391.43.

Visa Price Performance

The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $333.00 and its 200 day simple moving average is $338.12. The company has a market cap of $579.17 billion, a PE ratio of 29.93, a PEG ratio of 1.81 and a beta of 0.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.51, a quick ratio of 1.11 and a current ratio of 1.11.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The credit-card processor reported $3.17 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.14 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $10.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.69 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 61.74% and a net margin of 50.23%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 14.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.75 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 10th will be given a $0.67 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 10th. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 25.14%.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $349.18, for a total transaction of $3,661,152.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 9,401 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,282,641.18. The trade was a 52.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 0.12% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Sonoma Allocations LLC acquired a new stake in Visa during the 3rd quarter worth about $710,000. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Visa by 1.8% during the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,241,348 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $438,196,000 after purchasing an additional 21,401 shares during the period. Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 5.9% during the 2nd quarter. Baltimore Washington Financial Advisors Inc. now owns 95,150 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $33,783,000 after purchasing an additional 5,295 shares in the last quarter. Loring Wolcott & Coolidge Fiduciary Advisors LLP MA lifted its stake in shares of Visa by 2.6% in the 3rd quarter. Loring Wolcott & Coolidge Fiduciary Advisors LLP MA now owns 574,043 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $198,596,000 after purchasing an additional 14,581 shares during the period. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. boosted its holdings in Visa by 24.1% during the third quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 823,262 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $281,045,000 after buying an additional 159,906 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Company Profile

Visa Inc is a global payments technology company that facilitates electronic funds transfers and digital commerce by connecting consumers, merchants, financial institutions and governments. The firm operates one of the world’s largest payment networks, providing processing, authorization, clearing and settlement services for credit, debit and prepaid card transactions. Visa’s network-based model enables partner banks and other issuers to offer branded payment products while Visa focuses on the infrastructure, standards and technologies that move money securely and efficiently around the world.

Visa’s product and service portfolio includes card-based payment products for consumers and businesses, real-time push-payment capabilities, tokenization and authentication services, fraud and risk-management tools, data analytics and APIs for fintech and merchant integration.