Visa (NYSE:V) Trading Down 1.7% on Analyst Downgrade

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) shares traded down 1.7% on Tuesday after Erste Group Bank downgraded the stock from a buy rating to a hold rating. The stock traded as low as $337.63 and last traded at $338.66. 10,116,742 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 56% from the average session volume of 6,491,053 shares. The stock had previously closed at $344.36.

V has been the subject of a number of other reports. Oppenheimer raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $390.00 to $391.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 2nd. Jefferies Financial Group raised their price objective on shares of Visa from $400.00 to $410.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 27th. UBS Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $415.00 price objective (up from $405.00) on shares of Visa in a research report on Wednesday, July 30th. Truist Financial cut their price objective on shares of Visa from $400.00 to $397.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 17th. Finally, Mizuho upgraded shares of Visa from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $359.00 to $425.00 in a research report on Thursday, June 5th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Visa currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $385.96.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,027 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $344.02, for a total value of $697,328.54. Following the sale, the general counsel directly owned 11,925 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,102,438.50. This trade represents a 14.53% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,630 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, July 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $353.82, for a total transaction of $3,053,466.60. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 537 shares in the company, valued at $190,001.34. This represents a 94.14% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.13% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in V. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the second quarter worth approximately $7,034,939,000. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its stake in shares of Visa by 38,416.3% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 14,761,375 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $5,173,271,000 after acquiring an additional 14,723,050 shares in the last quarter. Nuveen LLC purchased a new position in shares of Visa during the first quarter worth approximately $3,518,533,000. TCI Fund Management Ltd. raised its stake in shares of Visa by 14.6% during the second quarter. TCI Fund Management Ltd. now owns 19,067,558 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $6,769,936,000 after acquiring an additional 2,429,996 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Corient Private Wealth LLC grew its holdings in shares of Visa by 110.4% in the second quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 3,954,937 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $1,396,930,000 after purchasing an additional 2,075,289 shares during the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Visa Price Performance

The company has a quick ratio of 1.12, a current ratio of 1.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52. The stock has a market cap of $620.70 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.07, a PEG ratio of 2.29 and a beta of 0.92. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $345.41 and its 200-day moving average price is $346.32.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, July 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.85 by $0.13. Visa had a net margin of 52.16% and a return on equity of 58.93%. The firm had revenue of $10.17 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.82 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.42 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 14.3% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, September 2nd. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, August 12th were issued a $0.59 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, August 12th. This represents a $2.36 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.7%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 23.05%.

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.