Barclays upgraded shares of Visa (NYSE:V – Free Report) to a strong-buy rating in a research note published on Tuesday morning,Zacks.com reports.
A number of other brokerages also recently weighed in on V. Evercore set a $350.00 target price on Visa in a research note on Wednesday, April 29th. Sanford C. Bernstein reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $450.00 price target on shares of Visa in a report on Tuesday, June 2nd. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $415.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Loop Capital started coverage on Visa in a research note on Tuesday, March 31st. They issued a “buy” rating and a $387.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Piper Sandler began coverage on Visa in a research report on Monday, June 29th. They set an “overweight” rating and a $394.00 target price for the company. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have assigned a Buy rating and one has issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $397.91.
View Our Latest Analysis on Visa
Visa Stock Performance
Visa (NYSE:V – Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The credit-card processor reported $3.31 earnings per share 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $10.75 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $2.76 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 17.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Visa will post 13.1 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Visa Announces Dividend
The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 1st. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, May 12th were issued a dividend of $0.67 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, May 12th. This represents a $2.68 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.8%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 23.34%.
Visa announced that its board has approved a stock buyback plan on Tuesday, April 28th that allows the company to buyback $20.00 billion in outstanding 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 usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.
Insiders Place Their Bets
In other news, CFO Chris Suh sold 10,639 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $324.81, for a total value of $3,455,653.59. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 9,872 shares in the company, valued at $3,206,524.32. This trade represents a 51.87% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 31,455 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $340.14, for a total transaction of $10,699,103.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 15,174 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,161,284.36. This trade represents a 67.46% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 75,581 shares of company stock worth $25,627,975 over the last quarter. 0.12% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.
Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa
A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Ransom Advisory Ltd grew its position in shares of Visa by 0.3% in the fourth quarter. Ransom Advisory Ltd now owns 9,447 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,313,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. NerdWallet Wealth Partners LLC lifted its holdings in Visa by 4.5% during the 2nd quarter. NerdWallet Wealth Partners LLC now owns 695 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $239,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. Bank OZK boosted its stake in Visa by 3.7% in the 3rd quarter. Bank OZK now owns 858 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $293,000 after purchasing an additional 31 shares during the period. FOCUS Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Visa by 0.4% in the 4th quarter. FOCUS Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 7,710 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,704,000 after purchasing an additional 31 shares during the period. Finally, Planned Solutions Inc. grew its holdings in Visa by 2.0% during the 4th quarter. Planned Solutions Inc. now owns 1,598 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $560,000 after buying an additional 31 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.
More Visa News
Here are the key news stories impacting Visa this week:
- Positive Sentiment: Visa is expanding its payments ecosystem through AI-driven “agentic commerce” pilots, including a live proof-of-concept where a Visa-linked purchase was completed inside an AI agent workflow. That suggests Visa is positioning itself for new transaction volume as commerce shifts toward AI assistants. Visa (V) Tests AI Agent Payments in Live Commerce Proof of Concept
- Positive Sentiment: Givebutter launched built-in Visa spend cards for nonprofits, showing continued adoption of Visa-branded payment products in niche use cases and supporting network usage growth. Givebutter Becomes the First Fundraising and CRM Platform to Offer Built-In Visa Spend Cards, Closing the Gap Between Fundraising and Impact
- Positive Sentiment: Several market commentaries highlighted Visa as a growth-oriented financial transaction stock, citing AI initiatives, improving earnings estimates, and its multi-rail payments strategy as potential long-term catalysts. Buy 5 Financial Transaction Stocks to Enhance Your Portfolio Returns
- Neutral Sentiment: Visa remains a strong player in a rapidly changing payments landscape, but the latest commentary mainly rehashed its strengths and weaknesses rather than pointing to a clear near-term catalyst. Visa: A Strong Player in a Disruptive Payments Landscape
- Negative Sentiment: Visa is facing renewed investor concern about structural pressure on its fee model. A report on Fiserv’s STAR network talks raised the possibility that large banks could build their own debit rails to bypass fee caps and reduce reliance on Visa and Mastercard. Fiserv’s Debit Network Talks Raise a Bigger Question for Visa and Mastercard
- Negative Sentiment: Another report argued that Visa’s multi-front challenges include settlement-related fee compression, stablecoin competition, and other alternative payment rails, all of which could weigh on margins and sentiment. Can Visa’s Multi-Rail Payments Strategy Drive Long-Term Growth?
About Visa
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.
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