Royal Bank of Canada Trims Visa (NYSE:V) Target Price to $311.00

Visa (NYSE:V) had its price target trimmed by Royal Bank of Canada from $315.00 to $311.00 in a research report sent to investors on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an outperform rating on the credit-card processor’s stock.

A number of other research analysts have also recently commented on the company. Citigroup raised their price target on Visa from $314.00 to $321.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. TD Cowen dropped their target price on shares of Visa from $320.00 to $318.00 and set a buy rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley reduced their price target on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $322.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. Macquarie boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $290.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 24th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reduced their target price on Visa from $300.00 to $290.00 and set an overweight rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-one have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Visa currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $307.25.

Visa Price Performance

Visa stock opened at $259.46 on Wednesday. Visa has a 12 month low of $227.78 and a 12 month high of $290.96. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $270.03 and its 200-day moving average is $274.30. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.40 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The company has a market capitalization of $474.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.99, a PEG ratio of 1.79 and a beta of 0.95.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.42 EPS for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $2.42. Visa had a return on equity of 51.94% and a net margin of 54.72%. The company had revenue of $8.90 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.92 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.16 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.6% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts expect that Visa will post 9.92 EPS for the current year.

Visa Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, September 3rd. Investors of record on Friday, August 9th will be paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.80%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, August 9th. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is presently 23.24%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 25,293 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $277.15, for a total transaction of $7,009,954.95. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,959,322.10. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. 0.19% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its holdings in Visa by 111.1% in the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 97,755 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $25,451,000 after purchasing an additional 51,439 shares during the period. San Luis Wealth Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Visa by 17.6% in the fourth quarter. San Luis Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 16,159 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $4,207,000 after purchasing an additional 2,422 shares during the period. Columbia Trust Co 01012016 grew its holdings in Visa by 14.3% in the fourth quarter. Columbia Trust Co 01012016 now owns 8,991 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,341,000 after purchasing an additional 1,128 shares during the period. RNC Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Visa by 1.7% in the fourth quarter. RNC Capital Management LLC now owns 31,419 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $8,180,000 after purchasing an additional 522 shares during the period. Finally, IFG Advisory LLC grew its holdings in Visa by 3.4% in the fourth quarter. IFG Advisory LLC now owns 4,404 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,147,000 after purchasing an additional 145 shares during the period. Institutional investors 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.