Visa lifts your dividend 20%

Article Excerpt

VISA INC. $203 is a buy. The company (New York symbol V; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 2.1 billion; Market cap: $426.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 14.6; Dividend yield: 0.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.visa.com) operates the world’s largest electronic-payments network. It processes credit, debit, prepaid and commercial transactions in over 200 countries. The company continues to benefit from rebounding travel volumes and consumer spending. In its fiscal 2022 fourth quarter, ended September 30, 2022, revenue rose 18.7%, to $7.79 billion from $6.56 billion a year earlier. Earnings also gained 16.2%, to $4.09 billion from $3.52 billion. Due to fewer shares outstanding, per-share earnings improved 19.1%, to $1.93 from $1.62. Thanks to those strong results, Visa is now raising your quarterly dividend by 20.0%. Starting with the December 2022 payment, investors will receive $0.45 a share instead of $0.375. The new annual rate of $1.80 yields 0.9%. The company also added $12.0 billion to its share buyback authorization. It can now repurchase up…