Visa stock has surged almost 50% year-over-year
Credit card name Visa Inc (NYSE:V) is up 1.1% at $201.25 this morning, rising on the heels of two bull notes. Specifically, Guggenheim and Keybanc both lifted their price targets to $222 and $215, respectively. V has had an outstanding year on the charts, surging more than 44% over the past 12 months alone. Emerging as support late last year was the 120-day moving average, while early this year a floor of support has been seen at the equity's $200 mark.
Heading into today, all but two of the 23 covering analysts sport a "buy" or "strong buy" recommendation on V, with not a single "sell" in place. Even further, the stock's consensus 12-month price target of $225.56 comes in 13% above current trading levels.
It comes with little surprise that optimism is evident in the options pits as well. Specifically, Visa stock's 10-day call/put volume ratio of 2.56 at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX). This ratio sits in the 94th annual percentile too, indicating a much bigger appetite for long calls of late.
This is echoed in the security' Schaeffer's open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.66, which sits in the 4th percentile of its annual range. This means short-term options players have been picking up calls at a much quicker-than-usual clip.