BUZZ-PREVIEW: Visa shares hit record high ahead of quarterly earnings report

** Shares of payments giant Visa V.N up 2.4% at $344.04, after earlier hitting a record high on Thurs ahead of its quarterly report due after markets close

** Analysts expect V's fiscal Q1 rev to rise more than 8% to $9.34 bln and EPS of $2.66, up 10.4% from a year ago

** V said in November that the European Commission opened a preliminary investigation into fees charged to retailers by V and Mastercard MA.N

** V's rev has met expectations 7 times over the last 8 quarters, while EPS has met or beat expectations every time in the same period

** Among the 41 analysts that cover V, median PT is $348.50 and avg rating is "BUY", per LSEG data

** V is up ~8.8% YTD compared with the ~7.5% gain in the S&P financial sector index .SPSY, which also hit a record high on Thursday