Visa (NYSE:V) Raised to Strong-Buy at Hsbc Global Res

Visa (NYSE:V) was upgraded by stock analysts at Hsbc Global Res from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report issued on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

A number of other analysts have also recently issued reports on V. Robert W. Baird set a $425.00 target price on Visa in a research note on Wednesday, October 29th. Raymond James Financial reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $408.00 price objective (up previously from $398.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. HSBC upgraded Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $335.00 to $389.00 in a report on Sunday. Finally, Morgan Stanley set a $398.00 price target on Visa and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 29th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have given a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $399.52.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $326.21 on Monday. Visa has a 12 month low of $299.00 and a 12 month high of $375.51. The company has a current ratio of 1.08, a quick ratio of 1.08 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The company has a market capitalization of $594.27 billion, a PE ratio of 31.95, a PEG ratio of 1.96 and a beta of 0.82. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $338.47 and its 200 day simple moving average is $345.71.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 28th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.97 by $0.01. Visa had a return on equity of 60.31% and a net margin of 50.15%.The company had revenue of $10.72 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $10.60 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.71 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict that Visa will post 11.3 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Lloyd Carney sold 900 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $336.48, for a total value of $302,832.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 2,468 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $830,432.64. This trade represents a 26.72% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,172 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $325.93, for a total transaction of $707,919.96. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 26,413 shares in the company, valued at $8,608,789.09. This trade represents a 7.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 24,042 shares of company stock valued at $8,175,152. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Visa

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in V. Keystone Global Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa in the 1st quarter valued at $26,000. Parvin Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in Visa by 200.0% in the third quarter. Parvin Asset Management LLC now owns 75 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 50 shares during the period. Family Legacy Financial Solutions LLC bought a new stake in Visa during the second quarter valued at $28,000. Harbor Asset Planning Inc. bought a new stake in Visa during the second quarter valued at $29,000. Finally, Sagard Holdings Management Inc. acquired a new stake in Visa during the 2nd quarter worth about $31,000. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.