Visa’s (V) “Buy (B)” Rating Reiterated at Weiss Ratings

Weiss Ratings reiterated their buy (b) rating on shares of Visa (NYSE:V) in a report published on Friday,Weiss Ratings reports.

A number of other research firms also recently weighed in on V. Citigroup raised Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $408.00 price target (up previously from $396.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, July 31st. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft started coverage on Visa in a report on Thursday, July 17th. They set a “buy” rating and a $410.00 target price on the stock. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Visa from $386.00 to $402.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 30th. Finally, UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $415.00 target price (up from $405.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, July 30th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have given a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $392.75.

Visa Stock Performance

V stock opened at $347.34 on Friday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $344.79 and its 200-day moving average is $347.98. The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52. The company has a market cap of $636.60 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.92, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.05 and a beta of 0.90. Visa has a twelve month low of $280.78 and a twelve month high of $375.51.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 return on equity of 58.93% and a net margin of 52.16%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 14.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.42 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Visa will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, August 12th were paid a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, August 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.7%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 23.05%.

Insider Activity

In other Visa news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,027 shares of Visa 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 sale, the general counsel owned 11,925 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,102,438.50. This trade represents a 14.53% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $342.30, for a total value of $3,589,015.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 537 shares in the company, valued at $183,815.10. This represents a 95.13% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Visa by 0.9% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 162,544,006 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $57,711,249,000 after acquiring an additional 1,461,575 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 2.5% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 43,096,802 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,253,245,000 after acquiring an additional 1,067,631 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the second quarter valued at about $7,034,939,000. TCI Fund Management Ltd. increased its position in shares of Visa by 14.6% in the second quarter. TCI Fund Management Ltd. now owns 19,067,558 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,769,936,000 after acquiring an additional 2,429,996 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp increased its position in shares of Visa by 4.0% in the first quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 18,987,013 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,654,189,000 after acquiring an additional 726,299 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Company Profile

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.