Visa (NYSE:V) Upgraded by Citigroup to “Strong-Buy” Rating

Visa (NYSE:V) was upgraded by research analysts at Citigroup to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note issued to investors on Thursday,Zacks.com reports.

V has been the subject of several other research reports. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft began coverage on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, July 17th. They set a “buy” rating and a $410.00 price target for the company. Wells Fargo & Company raised shares of Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Macquarie increased their price target on shares of Visa from $380.00 to $425.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 31st. UBS Group reissued a “buy” rating and set a $415.00 price target (up previously from $405.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, July 30th. Finally, Raymond James Financial reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, July 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have issued a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $392.75.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $345.82 on Thursday. Visa has a 52-week low of $280.78 and a 52-week high of $375.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $633.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.04 and a beta of 0.90. The company has a fifty day moving average of $344.73 and a 200-day moving average of $347.33. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.85 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 52.16% and a return on equity of 58.93%. The company had revenue of $10.17 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.82 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $2.42 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 14.3% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts expect that Visa will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Visa

In other Visa news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,027 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $344.02, for a total value of $697,328.54. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel directly owned 11,925 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,102,438.50. This represents a 14.53% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $342.30, for a total transaction of $3,589,015.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 537 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $183,815.10. This trade represents a 95.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of V. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Visa in the 2nd quarter worth about $7,034,939,000. Nuveen LLC bought a new position in shares of Visa in the 1st quarter worth about $3,518,533,000. TCI Fund Management Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Visa by 14.6% in the 2nd quarter. TCI Fund Management Ltd. now owns 19,067,558 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $6,769,936,000 after acquiring an additional 2,429,996 shares in the last quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC increased its stake in shares of Visa by 110.4% in the 2nd quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 3,954,937 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,396,930,000 after acquiring an additional 2,075,289 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Visa by 1.1% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 161,082,431 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $56,452,949,000 after acquiring an additional 1,677,088 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.