10 Most Widely Held Stocks by Hedge Funds

7. Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 163

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) is a multinational payment card service provider based in the United States that facilitates electronic fund transfers across the globe. The company also provides commercial patent solutions, sells cards, has virtual cards, and offers B2B payment options.

In the past quarter, Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) leveraged its proprietary services to expand its presence globally. Yape, a super app in Peru with more than 15 million users has now integrated Visa’s services to facilitate money transfers directly through mobile devices. Moreover, prominent digital wallets in Vietnam have enabled Visa cards for over 50 million users.

In the fiscal third quarter of 2024, the company logged $8.9 billion in revenue, up by 10% year-over-year. The company also grew its global payments volume by 7% and 5% in the US. Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) is a legendary company that knows the art of expansion. Only last week, the company acquired Featurespace, an AI payments protection technology developer. The acquisition will help Visa expand in the fraud detection and risk scoring segments.

Analysts are bullish on the stock, and why should they not be? The company currently has more than 4.5 billion cards in circulation in over 200 countries. In addition to that, In the past 12 months, Visa has facilitated 296.8 billion transactions with a total volume of $15.5 trillion.

Overall, 163 hedge funds held stakes in Visa (NYSE:V) in the second quarter, with positions worth $24.9 billion. According to the Insider Monkey database, TCI Fund Management is the largest shareholder of the company, as of June 30.

Aoris International Fund stated the following regarding Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:

“Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) operates the world’s largest payments network, which facilitates the movement of money between merchants, financial institutions, consumers, businesses, and governments.

The company is best known for enabling consumers to make debit and credit card payments. In the year to September 2023, 4.3 billion Visa cardholders made 213 billion transactions on its network, to a total value of US$12.1 trillion.

Compared to cash and cheques, which are still widely used around the world, Visa’s network is a more convenient, secure, and ubiquitous way for consumers to pay. Visa has invested to reduce friction and fraud in the payments experience, to the benefit of both merchants and consumers…” (Click here to read the full text)