Long-Term Stock Portfolio: 5 Best Stocks for 20 Years

2. Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 173

Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California. It facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout the world, most commonly through Visa-branded credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards. One of the world’s most valuable companies, it currently pays a quarterly dividend of $0.45 per share and has a dividend yield of 0.77%, as of June 28. The electronic payments company is one of Warren Buffett’s oldest bets.

At the end of March 31, 173 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held stakes in Visa Inc. (NYSE:V), compared with 177 in the previous quarter. Collectively, these stakes are worth over $26 billion.

Polen Capital made the following comment about Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in its Q1 2023 investor letter:

“We trimmed Mastercard and Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) to equal weights of the Portfolio. Mastercard and Visa operate as a duopoly in a large and growing market. Over the last 50 years, global personal consumer expenditures (PCE) has grown 7-9% annualized. We expect 4-5% long-term PCE growth going forward. Additionally, the shift from cash to credit continues unabated, with a total credit penetration of only approximately 50% globally.3 This shift provides Visa and Mastercard with another ~4-6% of growth. When combined with PCE, this gives both companies high-single-digit to low-double[1]digit revenue growth opportunities. This growth estimate is before accounting for growth amplifiers like the acceleration of e[1]commerce, the shift from offline to online, and additional services. Both companies enjoy extremely strong network effects that provide strong competitive advantages.

We have trimmed Visa and Mastercard because their combined weight grew to over 12% of the Global Growth Portfolio because of their recent performance and to fund our increase in Amazon’s position size. We added to both positions when their prices were depressed due to cross-border transactions deteriorating materially from the pandemic. Cross-border volumes came roaring back when travel corridors reopened, and although we are several quarters removed from the cross-border nadir, Visa still grew volumes >30% in 1Q23. Total cross-border volumes are now 132% of 2019 levels. At 4.5% each, both companies remain high conviction positions for Global Growth.”