Visa (NYSE:V) Trading Up 1.7% on Analyst Upgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) rose 1.7% during trading on Monday after Piper Sandler upgraded the stock from an overweight rating to a strong-buy rating. The stock traded as high as $345.81 and last traded at $341.8610. Approximately 8,002,009 shares were traded during mid-day trading, an increase of 1% from the average session volume of 7,959,813 shares. The stock had previously closed at $336.23.

V has been the subject of a number of other reports. Oppenheimer reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $403.00 price target (up from $391.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Sanford C. Bernstein restated an “outperform” rating and set a $450.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a research report on Tuesday, June 2nd. Weiss Ratings lowered Visa from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 16th. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $400.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, Bank of America began coverage on shares of Visa in a research note on Thursday, March 5th. They set a “buy” rating and a $410.00 price target on the stock. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seventeen have issued a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $397.96.

Insider Transactions at Visa

In other Visa news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 31,455 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $340.14, for a total transaction of $10,699,103.70. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 15,174 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,161,284.36. This represents a 67.46% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Chris Suh sold 10,639 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $324.81, for a total transaction of $3,455,653.59. Following the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 9,872 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,206,524.32. The trade was a 51.87% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 63,064 shares of company stock worth $21,289,800. Company insiders own 0.12% of the company’s stock.

Key Stories Impacting Visa

Here are the key news stories impacting Visa this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Visa is gaining attention from the launch of Open USD, a new stablecoin initiative backed by Visa and more than 140 partners, including major names like Mastercard, Stripe, BlackRock, Google and Coinbase. Investors may view this as evidence that Visa is staying central to the next phase of digital payments and cross-border money movement.
• Positive Sentiment: Piper Sandler upgraded Visa (V) from overweight to strong-buy, which can help support the stock by signaling stronger analyst confidence in the company’s outlook.
• Positive Sentiment: Visa said consumers are still spending on discretionary items by hunting for deals online, suggesting payment volumes may remain resilient despite inflation pressure.
• Positive Sentiment: Traders bought an unusually large number of call options on Visa, a sign of rising bullish sentiment and expectations for further upside.
• Neutral Sentiment: Visa also expanded its travel platform and added new smartphone-based payment tools for small businesses, both of which support its long-term growth story but are less likely to move the stock immediately.
• Negative Sentiment: CEO Ryan McInerney sold 20,970 shares under a pre-arranged trading plan. The sale is not necessarily a bearish signal, but insider selling can still create some caution among investors.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in V. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Visa in the 4th quarter valued at $5,877,738,000. Cardano Risk Management B.V. grew its holdings in Visa by 867.6% during the fourth quarter. Cardano Risk Management B.V. now owns 8,213,610 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,880,595,000 after purchasing an additional 7,364,762 shares during the period. Diamant Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in Visa by 29,706.3% in the first quarter. Diamant Asset Management Inc. now owns 7,332,947 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $2,216,310,000 after purchasing an additional 7,308,345 shares in the last quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP increased its stake in Visa by 12,497.1% in the fourth quarter. J. Stern & Co. LLP now owns 3,378,039 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,184,712,000 after purchasing an additional 3,351,223 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. raised its holdings in Visa by 48.2% in the fourth quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 6,508,089 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $2,282,472,000 after purchasing an additional 2,116,463 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Visa Trading Up 2.4%

The business’s 50-day moving average price is $324.40 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $324.52. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.64, a current ratio of 1.09 and a quick ratio of 1.09. The company has a market capitalization of $630.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.61, a PEG ratio of 1.82 and a beta of 0.77.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 28th. The credit-card processor reported $3.31 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.10 by $0.21. Visa had a net margin of 51.68% and a return on equity of 65.00%. The company had revenue of $11.23 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $10.75 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.76 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 17.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 13.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, June 1st. Investors of record on Tuesday, May 12th were issued a dividend of $0.67 per share. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, May 12th. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 23.34%.

Visa announced that its board has authorized a share repurchase plan on Tuesday, April 28th that allows the company to repurchase $20.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the credit-card processor to buy up to 3.6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are often an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

About Visa

Visa Inc is a global payments technology company that facilitates electronic funds transfers and digital commerce by connecting consumers, merchants, financial institutions and governments. The firm operates one of the world’s largest payment networks, providing processing, authorization, clearing and settlement services for credit, debit and prepaid card transactions. Visa’s network-based model enables partner banks and other issuers to offer branded payment products while Visa focuses on the infrastructure, standards and technologies that move money securely and efficiently around the world.

Visa’s product and service portfolio includes card-based payment products for consumers and businesses, real-time push-payment capabilities, tokenization and authentication services, fraud and risk-management tools, data analytics and APIs for fintech and merchant integration.