New York, January 6, 2026, 19:13 EST — After-hours
- Visa shares rose 1.1% in regular trade and were flat after hours
- A filing showed CEO Ryan McInerney exercised options and sold shares under a 10b5-1 plan
- Investors are bracing for job openings data on Wednesday and the U.S. payrolls report on Friday
Visa Inc. (V) shares rose 1.1% to $357.56 in Tuesday’s regular session and were unchanged in after-hours trading.
The move came as Wall Street extended a rally that pushed the S&P 500 and Dow to record closes, with investors looking ahead to U.S. labor data that can reshape expectations for Federal Reserve rate cuts. The S&P 500 is trading at about 22 times expected earnings, Reuters reported, leaving little room for economic surprises as earnings season approaches.
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) — a snapshot of labor demand that tracks openings, hires and quits — is due on Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. ET, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Employment Situation report for December follows on Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET.
A regulatory filing on Monday showed Chief Executive Ryan McInerney exercised stock options and sold 10,485 Visa shares on Jan. 2 at $349.18 under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted in May 2025. A 10b5-1 plan is a pre-set trading arrangement designed to reduce concerns that insiders are trading on non-public information.
Visa has now notched a two-day winning streak but lagged payments peer Mastercard, which rose 2.1% on Tuesday, MarketWatch data showed. Visa remains about 4.8% below its 52-week high of $375.51, and trading volume of about 6.7 million shares ran slightly above its 50-day average.
Investors often treat Visa as a proxy for card spending because it earns fees linked to purchase volume while banks bear most of the direct credit risk. That makes macro data on jobs and wages a key input for how traders handicap consumer resilience.
But the setup cuts both ways. A weak jobs report can revive growth worries and pressure spending-sensitive stocks, while a hot print can push bond yields higher and trim the market’s appetite for rate cuts.
The next test comes Wednesday with JOLTS, followed by Friday’s payrolls report for December. Visa’s next company event on the calendar is its annual meeting on Jan. 27.
