5 Best Dividend Paying Stocks To Buy Now

3. Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 171

An American financial services company, Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) has raised its dividends every year since 2008. On July 25, the company declared a quarterly dividend of $0.45 per share, which was consistent with its previous dividend. With a dividend yield of 0.74% as of August 25, V is one of the best dividend stocks on our list.

As of the close of Q2 2023, 171 hedge funds in Insider Monkey’s database owned investments in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V), with a collective value of roughly $25 billion. With over 17.7 million shares, TCI Fund Management was the company’s leading stakeholder in Q2.

Baron Funds mentioned Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in its Q2 2023 investor letter. Here is what the firm has to say:

“We modestly trimmed Visa Inc. (NYSE:V), Mastercard Incorporated, and Accenture plc to manage the position sizes and raise capital to fund purchases elsewhere. These stocks remain full-sized positions and high-conviction ideas in the Fund.

Another fintech industry trend we’re seeing is a pickup in M&A activity, most notably in the payments sector. The year started with Nuvei’s $1.3 billion acquisition of Paya announced in January. In April, Network International received an initial takeover offer from a group of private equity firms, which was then topped by Brookfield Asset Management whose $2.8 billion offer was accepted by the Board in June. Following reports earlier this year of a bidding war between Visa Inc. and Mastercard Incorporated to acquire cloud-based issuer processor and core banking software provider Pismo, Visa announced its intention to acquire the Brazilian company for $1 billion in late June.”