Visa Inc. (V)

A phenomenal company. Really one of the top picks in the financial space. Very strong growth. Just signed a deal with Costco and ARP. They are looking to get into China by 2017. Just acquired Visa Europe. Margins are roughly 60% plus. Growing the top line at about 10%-12% a year. Bottom line is growing 9%-10% a year. A very strong name with an identifiable catalyst.

They have recently agreed to purchase Visa-Europe. It is an add-on of a company that has great opportunity. Europeans don’t use credit cards as much as North Americans. Google Pay and Apple Wallet want to attach themselves to companies like Visa.

It is an upward trend. It is outperforming the S&P 500 and above its 20 day moving average. Technically the stock is okay. Seasonally it will do well around the beginning of December until April. Now is a good time to own this one.

A great entry point. Their transactions are growing 10%+ internationally and about 8%-9% domestically. Very well managed. International growth is going to increase as they have just announced a deal with Visa Europe. The non-North American market is not as well developed, so there is more opportunity to make inroads. Also, Olympics are coming up, which will be good for business.

Visa (V-N) or MasterCard (MA-N)? She likes this whole space and likes both companies, but only owns this one. There is a secular transition to electronic payments. There is a lot of growth going forward, especially in emerging markets. This is going to be buying out Visa Europe, which will be a catalyst to get their earnings growth up for the next couple of years. Her preference right now would be this company, but you could put money in both names with a little bit more into here.

A wonderful business. They grow the business at high returns with very little tangible assets. The thematic play still makes sense. There are still people around the world that are using cash. Everybody is doing shopping online, and you have to use Visa. The Visa network continues to grow. Likes their acquisition of Visa Europe which has 20% margins compared to this company’s 60% margins, so expect that 20% to increase over time. This is not cheap, and it will never be cheap.

They are growing, but the growth rate is slowing. The revenue side is starting to slow. The market at some point will take their multiple down. You should start to see a lot more volatility in the stock, especially if they miss on earnings in some quarter. He would want to take some money off the table at a high and then put it back in when it pulls back. But it is a great company.

A great story. Just acquired Visa Europe, and the stock pulled back on that. It was a great acquisition for them. This company is a toll booth. On every transaction they get a percentage. There is no credit risk. The world is moving away from cash and into plastic or some kind of smart phone device. It has never been a cheap stock. If you can get this on a little pullback, he would do it, but you are not going to get it very cheap.

Just acquired Visa Europe. This will be accretive to earnings in a couple of years. He really likes the story from a longer-term perspective, because you are going to see an acceleration of mobile payment penetration in North America and abroad, but starting with the US, where the point-of-sale systems are going to get upgraded next year. There will also be a tremendous amount of growth in emerging markets as they move from cash to credit or debit cards. Thinks you will see double digit EPS growth longer-term. Very reasonable valuation. A good, long term hold. Dividend yield of 0.72%.

Clearly this is getting a premium valuation. Doesn’t know how well they are positioned in a mobile payments world when you are starting to get the PayPal’s and the Apple Pay of the world coming up on the electronic payments side. Trading at a 25+ multiple gives additional worries. He wouldn’t own this. Doesn’t know why it has such a high multiple.

(Market Call Minute) Looks very attractive.

He likes this, but owns MasterCard (MC-N) currently. This company is on track and doing pretty much the same thing in terms of performance. MasterCard is a little bit more internationally based in terms of their revenues and where they’re coming from and their expansion opportunities. The fact that we are moving away from cash and into electronic payments makes a lot of sense.

The news about buying Visa Europe was out about a month ago and the stock had a little pop. It will probably be very accretive. The multiple is getting rich, but the company continues to grow. The world is its customer. Use of electronic banking and transactions is only going to grow.

Financial technology. They enable transactions. This and MasterCard are both behaving quite well. They pulled back in the correction, but the trend is not broken. He considered it for a top pick today.

A premier quality company. Has terrific growth. Very high margin business. However, it has a high multiple in the mid-to high 20s. A great company, but too expensive. He would be taking a hard look at American Express (AXP-N) instead.