Visa (NYSE:V) Shares Down 1% on Insider Selling

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) dropped 1% during mid-day trading on Thursday following insider selling activity. The stock traded as low as $333.71 and last traded at $336.6280. Approximately 8,489,348 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 33% from the average daily volume of 6,405,045 shares. The stock had previously closed at $340.04.

Specifically, Director Lloyd Carney sold 900 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $336.48, for a total transaction of $302,832.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 2,468 shares in the company, valued at approximately $830,432.64. This represents a 26.72% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Ryan Mcinerney sold 10,485 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $341.00, for a total transaction of $3,575,385.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 537 shares in the company, valued at approximately $183,117. This trade represents a 95.13% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Weiss Ratings restated a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Visa in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft assumed coverage on Visa in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $410.00 price target for the company. Erste Group Bank cut Visa from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, September 22nd. Macquarie decreased their target price on Visa from $425.00 to $410.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, October 29th. Finally, Citigroup raised shares of Visa to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 23rd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seventeen have issued a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $400.00.

Visa Stock Performance

The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $343.52 and its 200 day simple moving average is $348.62. The stock has a market capitalization of $615.66 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.90, a PEG ratio of 2.04 and a beta of 0.87. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 1.08 and a quick ratio of 1.12.

Visa (NYSE:V) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 28th. The credit-card processor reported $2.98 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.97 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $10.72 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $10.60 billion. Visa had a return on equity of 60.31% and a net margin of 50.15%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $2.71 earnings per share. Research analysts expect that Visa Inc. will post 11.3 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Visa Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, December 1st. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, November 12th will be given a dividend of $0.67 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, November 12th. This represents a $2.68 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.8%. This is a boost from Visa’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.59. Visa’s payout ratio is currently 23.11%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of V. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Visa during the 2nd quarter valued at about $7,034,939,000. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in Visa during the first quarter valued at about $3,518,533,000. TCI Fund Management Ltd. increased 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 valued at $6,769,936,000 after buying an additional 2,429,996 shares during the period. Corient Private Wealth LLC lifted its position in 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 stake in shares of Visa by 1.1% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 161,082,431 shares of the credit-card processor’s stock worth $56,452,949,000 after buying an additional 1,677,088 shares in the last quarter. 82.15% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.