Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Expected to Rise, Wells Fargo & Company Analyst Says

Visa (NYSE:V) had its price objective raised by Wells Fargo & Company from $360.00 to $395.00 in a research note released on Friday,Benzinga reports. Wells Fargo & Company currently has an overweight rating on the credit-card processor’s stock.

A number of other research firms also recently issued reports on V. Bank of America raised their target price on Visa from $331.00 to $363.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price objective on Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, December 9th. Seaport Res Ptn upgraded shares of Visa from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 18th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $352.27.

Visa Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of Visa stock opened at $342.05 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $637.19 billion, a PE ratio of 35.15, a P/E/G ratio of 2.27 and a beta of 0.96. Visa has a 1 year low of $252.70 and a 1 year high of $351.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 1.28 and a quick ratio of 1.28. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $317.74 and a 200-day moving average price of $292.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. Equities research analysts anticipate that Visa will post 11.18 EPS for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be given a dividend of $0.59 per share. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, February 11th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.69%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 24.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total transaction of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. International Assets Investment Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Visa by 45,189.4% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 9,758,505 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,683,101,000 after purchasing an additional 9,736,958 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC grew its position in shares of Visa by 4,412.3% in the 3rd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 4,072,467 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,119,725,000 after buying an additional 4,166,905 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its stake in shares of Visa by 4.5% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after buying an additional 3,327,977 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its holdings in shares of Visa by 6.1% during 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 acquiring an additional 3,265,518 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Visa by 7.7% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $10,601,135,000 after acquiring an additional 2,772,549 shares in the last quarter. 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.