Key Takeaways
- Visa stock is up 10% in the past month (through Tuesday’s close) to a record high, against a 1% gain for the S&P 500.
- Earnings estimates barely moved, so the gain came from investors paying a higher multiple, near 28x forward earnings.
- The rally ran alongside Mastercard’s, even as a credit-card bill aimed at both networks gained President Trump’s support.
- Visa reports fiscal fourth-quarter results after the close on Oct. 27, and its fiscal 2027 outlook will decide whether the stock is worth buying at this multiple.
Visa (V) stock is up 10% in the past month (through Tuesday’s close), and it finished Tuesday at a record high. Over the same stretch, the S&P 500 rose 1% and the Nasdaq 100 slipped.
And Visa reports earnings in a week, so anyone buying here is betting the report backs up the run.
TIKR tracks 40 analysts on Visa. How many say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on Visa, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See Visa’s Analyst Ratings
What exactly happened
The two biggest up days came with no Visa news at all.
- Oct. 5 and Oct. 9: Visa gained 2.5% and 2.8%, about half the month’s move between them, as Mastercard (MA) rose eight sessions in a row to records.
- Oct. 13: China’s central bank approved Visa’s application to prepare a domestic bank card clearing business.
- Oct. 15: Visa Direct’s stablecoin payouts moved from pilot to commercial use, and BMO raised its target to $425 from $405.
- Oct. 16: Barron’s put Visa and Mastercard among the stocks hitting records as investors rotated out of chip stocks.
Investors are paying more for the same earnings
None of that changed Wall Street’s numbers. From Sept. 30 to Oct. 15, Visa’s forward earnings estimate held near $14.45 a share, and fiscal 2027 revenue estimates moved 0.02%.
What changed was the price investors will pay for those earnings. Visa’s forward P/E is now about 28x, up from about 25x at the end of September and 23x in March, and above its five-year average of 26.6x.
(It’s still well short of the 34x it hit in October 2021, though.)
China and stablecoins aren’t in the estimates yet. The approval only lets Visa start preparing, more than five years after it applied, and WeChat and Alipay already dominate payments there. Evercore ISI said it’s “hard to get too excited about” Visa’s revenue in China. And Visa gave no volume or revenue figures for the stablecoin launch.
So the Street still expects normalized EPS to grow about 14% in fiscal 2027 (the year to September 2027), to $15.02 a share.
What’s next: Oct. 27 and the credit-card bill
Visa reports fiscal fourth-quarter results after the close on Tuesday, Oct. 27. The Street expects about $12.1 billion of revenue and $3.43 of adjusted EPS for the quarter, and stablecoins and AI payments are what investors will listen for.
Fiscal 2027 revenue matters more, and consensus there sits near $50.8 billion. An outlook above that would give a 28x multiple something to stand on.
The risk is in Washington. The Credit Card Competition Act would make big card-issuing banks give merchants a network other than Visa or Mastercard for each credit card payment, and The Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 8 that the bill had won President Trump’s support. He called for its passage again at a Kansas rally on Monday night.
Visa’s biggest up day of the month came the day after the Journal’s report.
Hold, and let Oct. 27 make the case
Analysts have raised their targets too, though the stock has climbed faster. The average target has risen from $391 a year ago to about $424, now only about 4% above Tuesday’s close.
Bernstein’s $475 is the high. The low, $330, is about where today’s estimates would put Visa at March’s 23x.
So, take profits or buy more? Neither, for now. I wouldn’t sell a business the Street expects to grow earnings at double digits through fiscal 2028, but at 28x a week before earnings, I wouldn’t add either. I’d hold, and buy on a fiscal 2027 outlook above the Street’s, or on a pullback toward a mid-20s multiple.
Of course, if merchants’ lobbyists get the bill attached to other legislation after the midterms, as they reportedly want to, Visa’s multiple could come down whatever it reports.
So what is Visa stock actually worth?
TIKR lets you forecast the future price of any stock in less than a minute. Just enter a few assumptions into TIKR’s valuation model and see what Visa could be worth. Start from Wall Street consensus estimates, or adjust the inputs to reflect your own view of the business. It’s free to use.
Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
