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Visa (V) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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Visa (V - Free Report) closed at $228.22 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.64% move from the prior day. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.24% gain on the day. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.03%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 5.73%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the global payments processor had lost 2.35% over the past month. This has lagged the Business Services sector's gain of 3.81% and the S&P 500's gain of 3.56% in that time.

Visa will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect Visa to post earnings of $2.10 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 6.06%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $8.05 billion, up 10.64% from the prior-year quarter.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $8.58 per share and revenue of $32.51 billion. These totals would mark changes of +14.4% and +10.93%, respectively, from last year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Visa. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.17% higher. Visa is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

In terms of valuation, Visa is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 26.42. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 14.49, which means Visa is trading at a premium to the group.

Investors should also note that V has a PEG ratio of 1.74 right now. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. The Financial Transaction Services industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.11 as of yesterday's close.

The Financial Transaction Services industry is part of the Business Services sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 158, putting it in the bottom 38% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Make sure to utilize Zacks.com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.


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