Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Down 0.4% – Should You Sell?

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) shares traded down 0.4% during trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as low as $343.25 and last traded at $344.91. 1,271,197 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 82% from the average session volume of 7,138,396 shares. The stock had previously closed at $346.35.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently weighed in on V shares. William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Visa in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on Visa from $360.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and set a $383.00 price objective (up previously from $368.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Friday, January 31st. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $361.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, February 3rd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price target on shares of Visa from $346.00 to $384.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-three have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $355.84.

Visa Price Performance

The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45. The firm has a market capitalization of $630.04 billion, a PE ratio of 34.19, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 0.94. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $345.36 and a 200 day moving average price of $316.73.

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

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 3rd. Investors of record on Tuesday, February 11th were given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.70%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.79%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $340.00, for a total transaction of $2,930,800.00. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 39,350 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $327.20, for a total transaction of $12,875,320.00. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 26,413 shares in the company, valued at $8,642,333.60. This represents a 59.84 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 143,205 shares of company stock worth $48,842,490. Insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of V. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Visa in the fourth quarter valued at $5,171,271,000. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Visa by 4.6% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 159,405,343 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $50,378,465,000 after buying an additional 7,079,706 shares during the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in Visa during the 4th quarter worth $1,955,403,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Visa by 17,018.7% during the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 3,949,118 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,248,079,000 after buying an additional 3,926,049 shares during the period. Finally, State Street Corp lifted its position in Visa by 4.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $21,064,179,000 after acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

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.