Visa (NYSE:V) Given New $331.00 Price Target at Bank of America

Visa (NYSE:V) had its target price lifted by research analysts at Bank of America from $314.00 to $331.00 in a research report issued on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a “neutral” rating on the credit-card processor’s stock. Bank of America‘s target price would suggest a potential upside of 2.24% from the company’s previous close.

Several other research analysts have also commented on V. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on Visa from $325.00 to $360.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 3rd. Jefferies Financial Group boosted their target price on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on Visa from $310.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $335.00 to $360.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, December 9th. Finally, Macquarie raised their target price on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $332.81.

Visa Trading Up 1.3 %

Shares of V stock opened at $323.76 on Wednesday. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $313.59 and its 200-day moving average price is $289.09. Visa has a 12-month low of $252.70 and a 12-month high of $324.58. The stock has a market capitalization of $603.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.27, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.15 and a beta of 0.96. The company has a current ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55.

Visa (NYSE:V) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $9.49 billion. Visa had a net margin of 54.96% and a return on equity of 53.16%. Visa’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.33 earnings per share. Equities research analysts predict that Visa will post 11.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Visa

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total transaction of $2,739,263.60. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 22nd. The shares were 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 owns 17,894 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,510,815.18. This represents 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 Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp raised its holdings in Visa by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 76,610,942 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $21,064,179,000 after acquiring an additional 3,327,977 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its stake in Visa by 6.1% in 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 purchasing an additional 3,265,518 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Visa by 7.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 38,655,250 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $10,601,135,000 after buying an additional 2,772,549 shares during the period. Ameriprise Financial Inc. boosted its stake in Visa by 2.4% in the 2nd quarter. Ameriprise Financial Inc. now owns 14,610,590 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $3,833,981,000 after buying an additional 345,829 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc grew its holdings in Visa by 2.2% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 14,416,394 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $3,783,857,000 after buying an additional 312,286 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.