Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Down 0.7% – Time to Sell?

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) shares traded down 0.7% during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as low as $346.00 and last traded at $347.49. 1,321,524 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 76% from the average session volume of 5,602,823 shares. The stock had previously closed at $349.86.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

V has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of Visa from $350.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on shares of Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Mizuho raised their price target on shares of Visa from $279.00 to $292.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Visa in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.96.

Visa Trading Up 0.3 %

The company has a current ratio of 1.12, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The stock has a market cap of $652.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.31, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.97. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $329.81 and a 200-day simple moving average of $303.29.

Visa (NYSE:V) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a net margin of 54.27% and a return on equity of 54.79%. On average, research analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be given a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.67%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.79%.

Insider Activity

In related news, insider Tullier Kelly Mahon sold 33,741 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $349.77, for a total transaction of $11,801,589.57. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 36,566 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,789,689.82. The trade was a 47.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 55,885 shares of company stock worth $19,161,447. 0.13% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Visa

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of V. Peterson Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in Visa in the third quarter worth approximately $26,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. bought a new position in Visa during the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Bradley & Co. Private Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa in the fourth quarter worth about $27,000. Reston Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Visa during the 3rd quarter worth about $31,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its holdings in shares of Visa by 48.5% during the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 98 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 32 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.