Visa is a strong buy at current levels given its competitive moat and valuation, outweighing regulatory risks.
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The next stock I'm going to highlight is Visa. And this is an interesting situation because I've only calculated an upside of about 4% for Visa as I calculated a fair value of $396 and the current market price is $381.
But Visa is one of the few Hall of Fame businesses in the world where I would feel like I'm getting a good deal even if I could buy Visa stock at a fair price. But to be able to buy it at a 4% discount, I think is gravy. It's icing on the cake.
It's one of the most profitable businesses in the world. It is the most profitable business in the world if we measure over a 10-year period and not over one quarter or one year.
A couple of things I love about Visa is its two-way network. It's built over decades. The consumer side where over four billion Visa cards are outstanding around the world. And then the number of merchants that accept Visa as a payment method.
That two-way network is a strong competitive advantage that will be extremely difficult for any newcomer to replicate.
Secondly, I love the restrained competition in the industry. Competition is so restrained in fact that regulators have accused Visa and Mastercard of colluding with each other to keep rates elevated and keep discounts low and that's a good thing from an investor viewpoint.
A couple of bearish factors is regulators around the world are becoming more hostile against Visa and Mastercard being that they are US-based companies and the rest of the world pretty much hates America right now because of the trade barriers and increasing trade barriers instituted by President Donald Trump and so regulators are becoming more hostile against American companies including Visa and Mastercard.
The second bearish factor is innovators, stable coins, cryptocurrencies, etc. that are aiming to take their share of this very lucrative industry. But despite those factors, I think Visa is an excellent buying opportunity.
I own Visa stock in my portfolio and I'm interested in adding more.
McDonald's, like Visa, is a stock that rarely trades at this much of a discount compared to its fair value estimate.
What this channel has said about $V
Parkev Tatevosian, CFA has 2 calls on this stock; only the adjacent ones are shown.