Visa (NYSE:V) Stock Price Down 1.7% Following Analyst Downgrade

Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) fell 1.7% during mid-day trading on Wednesday after Macquarie lowered their price target on the stock from $425.00 to $410.00. Macquarie currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Visa traded as low as $339.00 and last traded at $340.9330. 8,235,616 shares were traded during trading, an increase of 29% from the average session volume of 6,403,382 shares. The stock had previously closed at $346.90.

Several other equities analysts have also issued reports on V. Raymond James Financial reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $408.00 price objective (up previously from $398.00) on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday. UBS Group set a $425.00 price objective on Visa and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. KeyCorp reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $405.00 price objective on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, October 22nd. Erste Group Bank downgraded shares of Visa from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, September 22nd. Finally, Robert W. Baird set a $425.00 target price on shares of Visa in a research note on Wednesday. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seventeen have issued a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $400.00.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $342.30, for a total value of $3,589,015.50. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 537 shares in the company, valued at $183,815.10. This trade represents a 95.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, General Counsel Julie B. Rottenberg sold 2,027 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $344.02, for a total transaction of $697,328.54. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel owned 11,925 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,102,438.50. The trade was a 14.53% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. 0.13% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Visa

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of V. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $7,034,939,000. Nuveen LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Visa during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $3,518,533,000. TCI Fund Management Ltd. lifted its position in shares of Visa by 14.6% during the 2nd quarter. TCI Fund Management Ltd. now owns 19,067,558 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $6,769,936,000 after acquiring an additional 2,429,996 shares during the period. Corient Private Wealth LLC lifted its position in shares of Visa by 110.4% during the 2nd quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 3,954,937 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $1,396,930,000 after acquiring an additional 2,075,289 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Visa by 1.1% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 161,082,431 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $56,452,949,000 after acquiring an additional 1,677,088 shares during the period. 82.15% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Visa Stock Performance

The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $344.93 and its 200-day moving average price is $348.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a quick ratio of 1.12 and a current ratio of 1.12. The company has a market capitalization of $624.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 33.39, a P/E/G ratio of 2.05 and a beta of 0.90.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, October 28th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.97 by $0.01. Visa had a net margin of 50.15% and a return on equity of 60.20%. The business had revenue of $10.72 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.60 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $2.71 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 11.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 earnings per share for the current year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 1st. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, November 12th will be paid a dividend of $0.67 per share. This is a positive change from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.59. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.8%. Visa’s dividend payout ratio is 23.05%.

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.