Visa (NYSE:V) Trading Down 0.2% on Insider Selling

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) was down 0.2% during mid-day trading on Monday following insider selling activity. The company traded as low as $312.22 and last traded at $314.26. Approximately 1,559,507 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 57% from the average daily volume of 3,633,394 shares. The stock had previously closed at $314.91.

Specifically, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have weighed in on V. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $317.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. Barclays lifted their price objective on Visa from $319.00 to $347.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, November 4th. Robert W. Baird upped their target price on Visa from $330.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets raised their target price on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Mizuho boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $329.70.

Visa Stock Performance

The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $309.73 and its 200-day simple moving average is $285.76. The company has a market capitalization of $585.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 32.33, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $2.33 earnings per share. Visa’s revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts predict that Visa Inc. will post 11.23 EPS for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, December 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, November 12th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 12th. This is an increase from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.52. This represents a $2.36 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.75%. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 24.25%.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in V. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after purchasing an additional 3,327,977 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its stake in Visa by 6.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,111,843 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,702,901,000 after buying an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Visa by 7.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after buying an additional 2,772,549 shares during the last quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its position in shares of Visa by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after acquiring an additional 345,829 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after acquiring an additional 312,286 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

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.