Visa (NYSE:V) Given New $354.00 Price Target at Citigroup

Visa (NYSE:V) had its target price raised by research analysts at Citigroup from $326.00 to $354.00 in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a “buy” rating on the credit-card processor’s stock. Citigroup’s target price would suggest a potential upside of 11.87% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. TD Cowen upped their price target on Visa from $318.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of Visa from $326.00 to $371.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, December 18th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price objective on shares of Visa from $300.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Jefferies Financial Group raised their target price on Visa from $320.00 to $330.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Susquehanna lifted their target price on Visa from $339.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock a “positive” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $331.92.

Visa Price Performance

V opened at $316.45 on Tuesday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $312.76 and a two-hundred day moving average of $287.65. Visa has a 52-week low of $252.70 and a 52-week high of $321.61. The company has a quick ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.28 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The company has a market cap of $589.51 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.52, a P/E/G ratio of 2.11 and a beta of 0.96.

Visa (NYSE:V) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 29th. The credit-card processor reported $2.71 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.58 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $9.62 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $9.49 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 53.16% and a net margin of 54.96%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 11.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.33 EPS. On average, analysts expect that Visa will post 11.23 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Paul D. Fabara sold 2,171 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $307.97, for a total value of $668,602.87. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly 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 sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 8,620 shares of Visa stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $317.78, for a total value of $2,739,263.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.13% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Visa

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Custom Index Systems LLC bought a new position in Visa during the 3rd quarter valued at $731,000. Copley Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in Visa during the third quarter valued at about $616,000. FORA Capital LLC bought a new stake in Visa in the third quarter worth about $7,987,000. Chicago Capital LLC lifted its holdings in Visa by 5.2% in the 3rd quarter. Chicago Capital LLC now owns 404,914 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $111,331,000 after acquiring an additional 20,023 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nexus Investment Management ULC lifted its holdings in Visa by 5,034.0% in the 3rd quarter. Nexus Investment Management ULC now owns 56,371 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock valued at $15,499,000 after acquiring an additional 55,273 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.15% of the company’s stock.

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.