Visa (NYSE:V) Hits New 52-Week High – Should You Buy?

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) hit a new 52-week high on Monday . The company traded as high as $313.66 and last traded at $312.85, with a volume of 30245 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $309.92.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

V has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on Visa from $322.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on shares of Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Compass Point initiated coverage on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $319.00 target price for the company. Finally, Susquehanna boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $339.00 and gave the company a “positive” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $321.74.

Visa Stock Up 0.3 %

The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $289.52 and its 200 day simple moving average is $277.34. 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 firm has a market capitalization of $578.89 billion, a PE ratio of 32.06, a PEG ratio of 2.08 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results 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 analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $2.33 EPS. Visa’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.19 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 2nd. Investors of record on Tuesday, November 12th will be issued a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.76%. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. Visa’s payout ratio is presently 24.25%.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $276.37, for a total transaction of $2,382,309.40. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $148,687.06. This represents a 94.13 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.19% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. State Street Corp boosted 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 valued at $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its position in Visa by 6.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in 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 acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its holdings in Visa by 2.4% in the second quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after purchasing an additional 345,829 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its position in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 312,286 shares in the last quarter. 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.