Evercore ISI Boosts Visa (NYSE:V) Price Target to $335.00

Visa (NYSE:V) had its target price upped by Evercore ISI from $325.00 to $335.00 in a research note published on Tuesday morning, Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an outperform rating on the credit-card processor’s stock.

Other equities research analysts also recently issued reports about the company. Barclays upped their price objective on Visa from $304.00 to $319.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Monday, January 29th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods increased their price target on Visa from $305.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock an outperform rating in a report on Friday, January 26th. Susquehanna increased their price target on Visa from $300.00 to $326.00 and gave the stock a positive rating in a report on Friday, January 26th. BMO Capital Markets began coverage on Visa in a report on Tuesday, December 5th. They issued an outperform rating and a $280.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Citigroup increased their price target on Visa from $296.00 to $306.00 and gave the stock a buy rating in a report on Thursday, January 18th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eighteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus price target of $295.82.

Visa Price Performance

Shares of Visa stock opened at $279.08 on Tuesday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $279.32 and a 200 day moving average of $258.80. Visa has a 12 month low of $216.14 and a 12 month high of $290.96. The firm has a market cap of $512.53 billion, a PE ratio of 32.12, a PEG ratio of 1.93 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.45, a quick ratio of 1.45 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 25th. The credit-card processor reported $2.41 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.34 by $0.07. Visa had a return on equity of 50.02% and a net margin of 53.92%. The company had revenue of $8.63 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.55 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $2.18 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that Visa will post 9.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 1st. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 9th were paid a dividend of $0.52 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 8th. This represents a $2.08 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.75%. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 23.94%.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total transaction of $729,271.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,365,954.24. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, insider Rajat Taneja sold 36,546 shares of Visa stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.20, for a total transaction of $9,874,729.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 232,112 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $62,716,662.40. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total transaction of $729,271.20. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,898 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,365,954.24. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 47,311 shares of company stock valued at $12,832,129 in the last quarter. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. BCK Partners Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter valued at about $2,717,000. Markel Corp boosted its position in shares of Visa by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. Markel Corp now owns 961,105 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $213,144,000 after acquiring an additional 3,065 shares during the last quarter. AMI Investment Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter valued at about $2,323,000. Ergoteles LLC acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter valued at about $538,000. Finally, XTX Topco Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter valued at about $1,496,000. 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.