Visa Analysts Enthused After Third-Quarter Report; Shares Muted

The focus for analysts covering Visa include foreign business, e-commerce and mobile efforts.
By Rob Daniel ,

Wall Street analysts were generally positive about Visa's (V) - Get Report fiscal-third-quarter report, which exceeded their estimates for both profit and revenue.

Investors appeared a bit less certain.

Shares of Visa were gently lower -- down 0.4% at $180.16 -- on Wednesday after the San Francisco credit card company late Tuesday reported results for the quarter ended June 30.

Adjusted earnings for the quarter were $1.37 a share, as revenue rose 11% to $5.84 billion.

A survey of analysts by FactSet produced consensus estimates of adjusted profit of $1.32 a share on revenue of $5.7 billion.

For the fiscal year, Visa expects revenue to grow in the low double digits.

A number of analysts raised their price targets on the stock, including James Friedman at Susquehanna International, to $207 from $190; Tien-tsin Huang at J.P. Morgan, to $182 from $166; and Andrew Jeffrey at SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, to $205 from $185.

Moshe Katri at Wedbush affirmed his price target at $187.

Susquehanna's Friedman, who rated the stock positive, said revenue "accelerated thanks in part to improved cross-border and pricing mix."

Huang at J.P. Morgan ranked the stock overweight. "Solid volume and yield trends and recent M&A should fuel continued double-digit growth into fiscal 2020," the analyst wrote.

At SunTrust, Jeffrey reiterated a buy rating, calling Visa "a core holding" and "the most valuable global payments asset." Most "third-party wallets, e-commerce and mobile solutions ride Visa's rails," the analyst wrote.

Katri at Wedbush maintained the stock at outperform, noting that the company beat estimates despite "stronger-than-expected foreign-exchange headwinds."

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