William Blair Reaffirms Outperform Rating for Visa (NYSE:V)

Visa (NYSE:V)‘s stock had its “outperform” rating restated by equities researchers at William Blair in a report issued on Wednesday, RTT News reports.

A number of other research firms also recently issued reports on V. Robert W. Baird raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $314.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 17th. TD Cowen assumed coverage on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, April 11th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $320.00 target price for the company. Citigroup lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $314.00 to $321.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Raymond James lifted their target price on shares of Visa from $287.00 to $311.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 26th. Finally, Redburn Atlantic reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $307.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday, March 27th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and nineteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $302.00.

Visa Stock Up 1.1 %

Shares of Visa stock traded up $2.89 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $277.00. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 3,708,199 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,846,645. Visa has a one year low of $216.14 and a one year high of $290.96. The company has a market capitalization of $508.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.84, a P/E/G ratio of 1.88 and a beta of 0.96. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $279.49 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $263.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 1.45 and a current ratio of 1.45.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The credit-card processor reported $2.51 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.43 by $0.08. The company had revenue of $8.78 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $8.62 billion. Visa had a net margin of 53.92% and a return on equity of 50.02%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $2.09 earnings per share. On average, research analysts forecast that Visa will post 9.88 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other news, CAO Peter M. Andreski sold 2,615 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $278.88, for a total value 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 sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, 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 value of $729,271.20. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 4,898 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,365,954.24. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,200 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Monday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $280.36, for a total transaction of $2,298,952.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 538 shares in the company, valued at $150,833.68. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 18,965 shares of company stock worth $5,256,352. 0.19% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in V. Wells Trecaso Financial Group LLC increased its position in Visa by 1.3% during the 1st quarter. Wells Trecaso Financial Group LLC now owns 29,866 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $8,335,000 after purchasing an additional 370 shares during the period. Ackerman Capital Advisors LLC increased its position in Visa by 4.8% during the 1st quarter. Ackerman Capital Advisors LLC now owns 3,476 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $970,000 after purchasing an additional 158 shares during the period. Avitas Wealth Management LLC increased its position in Visa by 0.3% during the 1st quarter. Avitas Wealth Management LLC now owns 20,773 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $5,797,000 after purchasing an additional 72 shares during the period. Essex Financial Services Inc. increased its position in Visa by 1.7% during the 1st quarter. Essex Financial Services Inc. now owns 23,358 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,519,000 after purchasing an additional 395 shares during the period. Finally, Dechtman Wealth Management LLC purchased a new position in Visa during the 1st quarter valued at $288,000. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.