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Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is scheduled to report fiscal first quarter results today after the market close. Visa's executive management team will host a live audio webcast beginning at 5:00 PM ET.
For Visa's third full quarter as a public company, a quarter that saw a weak holiday sales season as consumers pulled back on spending, as well as a proposal to amend Visa's certificate of incorporation, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect Visa to report earnings of $0.66 per share on revenue of $1.7 billion, compared to $0.58 per share on of $1.7 billion in the previous quarter. Visa's earnings have topped estimates in recent quarters, by as much as 21.9%. But will that continue?
For the full year, analysts so far forecast earnings of $2.62 per share and revenue of $6.8 billion, compared to $2.25 per share on $6.3 billion in fiscal 2008.
Analysts, on average, expect Visa's long-term EPS growth to be 19.6%, which is better than that of the S&P 500 average and of MasterCard Inc. (NYSE: MA). The consensus recommendation is to buy Visa. The share price fell to a 52-week low of $41.78 in January and is about 23% lower than its IPO last March. And Visa recently declared a quarterly dividend.
Rival MasterCard reports fourth-quarter 2008 results on Thursday.
See BloggingStocks' Visa coverage and MasterCard coverage for more information.
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