Visa (NYSE:V) Trading 0% Higher Following Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)’s stock price shot up 0% during mid-day trading on Tuesday after JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on the stock from $290.00 to $320.00. JPMorgan Chase & Co. currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Visa traded as high as $267.38 and last traded at $266.58. 797,991 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 89% from the average session volume of 7,183,475 shares. The stock had previously closed at $266.47.

A number of other research firms also recently weighed in on V. Wedbush lifted their target price on Visa from $280.00 to $300.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. StockNews.com upgraded Visa from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, August 9th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their target price on Visa from $325.00 to $300.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, July 24th. Macquarie reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $300.00 price target on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, TD Cowen reduced their price objective on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $318.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, July 24th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-one have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $308.50.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 0.6% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 142,202,830 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $39,685,966,000 after acquiring an additional 788,908 shares during the period. Capital International Investors lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.7% in the first quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 23,570,391 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,578,025,000 after purchasing an additional 626,618 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors lifted its holdings in shares of Visa by 5.4% in the first quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 18,863,796 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,264,508,000 after purchasing an additional 968,008 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the fourth quarter worth about $3,895,015,000. Finally, Ameriprise Financial Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.4% during 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 buying an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Visa Price Performance

The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.37 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $266.10 and a 200 day simple moving average of $273.43. The stock has a market cap of $490.23 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.95, a PEG ratio of 1.89 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $2.42. Visa had a net margin of 54.72% and a return on equity of 51.94%. The firm had revenue of $8.90 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.92 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.16 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 9.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 9.91 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Shareholders of record on Friday, August 9th will be paid a $0.52 dividend. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.78%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, August 9th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is currently 23.24%.

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.