Banking, finance, and taxes

What to Watch When Visa Reports After the Close

Chris Lange

Published: October 24, 2019 10:50 am

Last Updated: January 30, 2020 2:09 pm

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is set to report its fiscal fourth-quarter financial results after the markets close on Thursday. The consensus estimates call for $1.43 in earnings per share (EPS) and $6.08 billion in revenue. The same period of last year reportedly had $1.21 in EPS and $5.43 billion in revenue.

Visa is one of the top stocks in the Dow Jones industrial average, and it is a somewhat unique company in that it is a longtime, established market leader that still enjoys strong growth prospects. Despite the ongoing evolution in the payments industry, Morningstar thinks a wide moat surrounds the business and that Visa’s position in the global electronic payment infrastructure is essentially unassailable.

Investor Place believes that Visa dominates the card payments industry, with the largest global market share outside of China. But to sustain above-average growth, Visa needs to look to new frontiers. One area of opportunity is cross-border payments.

Visa has outperformed the broad markets, with its stock up about 30% in the past 52 weeks. In just 2019 alone, the stock is up only 22%.

Prior to the release, a few analysts have weighed in on Visa:

• Wedbush has a Buy rating and a $187 price target.
• Citigroup has a Buy rating with a $206 price target.
• UBS rates it as Neutral with a $187 target price.
• Piper Jaffray has a Buy rating and a $207 target price.
• Raymond James’s Outperform rating comes with a $193 target.
• Nomura has a Buy rating with a $204 price target.

Shares of Visa traded up nearly 2% at $174.60 early Thursday, in a 52-week range of $121.60 to $187.05.