Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Up 0.1%

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s stock price shot up 0.1% during trading on Thursday . The company traded as high as $273.62 and last traded at $272.86. 629,706 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 91% from the average session volume of 6,823,088 shares. The stock had previously closed at $272.70.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently commented on V. Oppenheimer increased their price target on shares of Visa from $297.00 to $299.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 24th. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $314.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 17th. Evercore ISI cut their price objective on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, June 25th. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $315.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 24th. Finally, Bank of America reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $297.00 price objective (down previously from $305.00) on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, July 10th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-one have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $304.72.

Visa Stock Performance

The company’s 50-day moving average price is $272.00 and its 200 day moving average price is $274.22. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 1.40 and a current ratio of 1.40. The stock has a market capitalization of $485.51 billion, a PE ratio of 29.66, a PEG ratio of 1.88 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.51 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.43 by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $8.78 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.62 billion. Visa had a net margin of 53.87% and a return on equity of 51.23%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.09 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 9.94 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, May 17th were paid a $0.52 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, May 16th. This represents a $2.08 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.78%. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Visa news, Director Lloyd Carney sold 909 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $275.55, for a total transaction of $250,474.95. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 2,591 shares in the company, valued at approximately $713,950.05. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other news, Director Lloyd Carney sold 909 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $275.55, for a total transaction of $250,474.95. Following the sale, the director now owns 2,591 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $713,950.05. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 25,293 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $277.15, for a total transaction of $7,009,954.95. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,959,322.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.19% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in V. Nadler Financial Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Visa by 2.4% during the fourth quarter. Nadler Financial Group Inc. now owns 1,900 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $495,000 after purchasing an additional 44 shares in the last quarter. Towerpoint Wealth LLC purchased a new position in Visa during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $216,000. Andrew Hill Investment Advisors Inc. purchased a new position in Visa during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $3,427,000. Richelieu Gestion SA purchased a new position in Visa during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $307,000. Finally, Cooper Financial Group lifted its holdings in Visa by 6.4% during the fourth quarter. Cooper Financial Group now owns 7,926 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,064,000 after purchasing an additional 476 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

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.