TD Cowen Trims Visa (NYSE:V) Target Price to $318.00

Visa (NYSE:V) had its price target trimmed by TD Cowen from $320.00 to $318.00 in a research note published on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a buy rating on the credit-card processor’s stock.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports on the stock. Wedbush upped their price objective on shares of Visa from $280.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 24th. Royal Bank of Canada raised their price target on shares of Visa from $309.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Wednesday, April 24th. 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. Oppenheimer raised their target price on Visa from $297.00 to $299.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 24th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price objective on Visa from $325.00 to $300.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a report on Wednesday. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-one have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Visa presently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $307.25.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $259.46 on Wednesday. Visa has a 52-week low of $227.78 and a 52-week high of $290.96. The stock has a market capitalization of $474.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.79 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a fifty day moving average of $270.03 and a 200-day moving average of $274.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.40 and a current ratio of 1.37.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.42. Visa had a net margin of 54.72% and a return on equity of 51.94%. The company had revenue of $8.90 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.92 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.16 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 9.6% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts expect that Visa will post 9.92 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 9th will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.80%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 9th. Visa’s payout ratio is 23.24%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 25,293 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $277.15, for a total transaction of $7,009,954.95. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at $4,959,322.10. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Nadler Financial Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 44 shares in the last quarter. Towerpoint Wealth LLC bought a new position in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter valued at $216,000. Andrew Hill Investment Advisors Inc. bought a new position in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter valued at $3,427,000. Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Visa by 1.1% in the 4th quarter. Knights of Columbus Asset Advisors LLC now owns 75,421 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $19,636,000 after buying an additional 795 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cedrus LLC raised its position in Visa by 10.1% in the 4th quarter. Cedrus LLC now owns 2,010 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $523,000 after buying an additional 184 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.