Short Interest in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) Declines By 12.9%

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) was the target of a significant decline in short interest in January. As of January 15th, there was short interest totalling 26,370,000 shares, a decline of 12.9% from the December 31st total of 30,260,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 5,970,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 4.4 days.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related 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 available at 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 value of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. The trade was a 10.82 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Custom Index Systems LLC purchased a new stake in Visa in the 3rd quarter valued at about $731,000. Copley Financial Group Inc. purchased a new stake in Visa during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $616,000. Oak Ridge Investments LLC boosted its position in Visa by 5.9% in the 4th quarter. Oak Ridge Investments LLC now owns 75,456 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $23,847,000 after buying an additional 4,198 shares during the period. FORA Capital LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa in the third quarter worth $7,987,000. Finally, Chicago Capital LLC increased its position in shares of Visa by 5.2% during the third quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $111,331,000 after acquiring an additional 20,023 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently commented on V. Susquehanna upped their price objective on Visa from $375.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research note on Friday. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price objective on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Citigroup increased their target price on shares of Visa from $354.00 to $393.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Raymond James reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $393.00 price target (up from $374.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Friday. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-five have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $352.27.

Visa Stock Performance

Shares of Visa stock traded down $1.00 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $342.05. The company had a trading volume of 8,623,980 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,066,612. The stock has a market cap of $637.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.15, a PEG ratio of 2.27 and a beta of 0.96. Visa has a 12-month low of $252.70 and a 12-month high of $351.25. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $317.74 and a 200 day simple moving average of $292.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 30th. The credit-card processor reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.09. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. As a group, analysts predict that Visa will post 11.18 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 3rd. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, February 11th will be issued a $0.59 dividend. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, February 11th. Visa’s payout ratio is 24.25%.

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.