Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Receives Consensus Rating of “Buy” from Brokerages

Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Buy” from the twenty-seven research firms that are currently covering the stock, Marketbeat.com reports. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, eighteen have assigned a buy recommendation and six have assigned a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $387.6667.

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Truist Financial set a $371.00 price target on shares of Visa and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 12th. Weiss Ratings cut shares of Visa from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 16th. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $415.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Piper Sandler set a $160.00 price target on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, January 28th. Finally, Bank of America assumed coverage on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, March 5th. They set a “buy” rating and a $410.00 price target for the company.

Visa Trading Up 0.1%

Shares of V opened at $329.21 on Thursday. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $313.23 and its 200-day moving average price is $325.27. The firm has a market capitalization of $590.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.68, a PEG ratio of 1.76 and a beta of 0.78. The company has a current ratio of 1.09, a quick ratio of 1.09 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64. Visa has a 1-year low of $293.89 and a 1-year high of $375.51.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The credit-card processor reported $3.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.10 by $0.21. Visa had a net margin of 51.68% and a return on equity of 65.00%. The company had revenue of $11.23 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.75 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.76 EPS. Visa’s revenue was up 17.1% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Visa will post 13.09 EPS for the current year.

Visa declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase plan on Tuesday, April 28th that allows the company to buyback $20.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the credit-card processor to repurchase up to 3.6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 1st. Investors of record on Tuesday, May 12th will be given a dividend of $0.67 per share. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, May 12th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 23.34%.

Insider Activity at Visa

In other Visa news, Director Lloyd Carney sold 650 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $309.62, for a total value of $201,253.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 2,679 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $829,471.98. The trade was a 19.53% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 31,455 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $340.14, for a total transaction of $10,699,103.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 15,174 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,161,284.36. This trade represents a 67.46% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 42,744 shares of company stock valued at $14,356,010 in the last three months. Company insiders own 0.12% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Ritter Alpha LP purchased a new position in Visa in the first quarter worth about $225,000. Summitry LLC raised its holdings in Visa by 87.1% in the first quarter. Summitry LLC now owns 364,521 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $110,173,000 after buying an additional 169,729 shares during the last quarter. Groupama Asset Managment raised its holdings in Visa by 4.8% in the first quarter. Groupama Asset Managment now owns 71,168 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,510,000 after buying an additional 3,258 shares during the last quarter. WNY Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in Visa in the first quarter worth about $215,000. Finally, Coastline Complete Wealth LLC purchased a new position in Visa in the first quarter worth about $204,000. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Visa Company Profile

Visa Inc is a global payments technology company that facilitates electronic funds transfers and digital commerce by connecting consumers, merchants, financial institutions and governments. The firm operates one of the world’s largest payment networks, providing processing, authorization, clearing and settlement services for credit, debit and prepaid card transactions. Visa’s network-based model enables partner banks and other issuers to offer branded payment products while Visa focuses on the infrastructure, standards and technologies that move money securely and efficiently around the world.

Visa’s product and service portfolio includes card-based payment products for consumers and businesses, real-time push-payment capabilities, tokenization and authentication services, fraud and risk-management tools, data analytics and APIs for fintech and merchant integration.