Better Buy: Visa vs. Mastercard

American Century recently released its Q1 2020 Investor Letter, a copy of which you can download below. American Century Focused Global Growth Fund posted a return of -16.95% for the quarter, outperforming its benchmark, the MSCI ACWI Index which returned -21.37% in the same quarter. You should check out American Century’s top 5 stock picks for investors to buy right now, which could be the biggest winners of the stock market crash. There weren’t a lot of funds who could deliver these kinds of returns without shorting the market or using aggressive put options.

In the said letter, American Century spoke about Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) and Visa Inc. (NYSE:V). Mastercard and Visa both provide financial services. Year-to-date, Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) stock lost 0.58% and on May 20th it had a closing price of $298.80. Meanwhile, Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) stock gained 2.08% year-to-date and on May 20th it had a closing price of $193.86. Here is what American Century said:

“Mastercard. We reinitiated a position in the credit card processer as we believe the recent sell-off in the stock presented a favorable entry point. Mastercard is a financially strong business benefiting from growing global transaction volumes and e-commerce and the continued penetration of credit cards.

Visa. This operator of the world’s largest credit/debit card network system continues to benefit from increased use and spending on credit and debit cards, especially in many less developed markets. Visa’s earnings are also supported by large client wins. The company is a beneficiary of the rising penetration of e-commerce and credit card usage.”

Visa Inc (NYSE:V), Visa Electron, Card, MasterCard, Cards, Credit, bank

Our calculations showed that Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) is ranked #6 and Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA) is ranked #8 among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds. The top 10 stocks among hedge funds returned 185% since the end of 2014 and outperformed the S&P 500 Index ETFs by more than 109 percentage points. We know it sounds unbelievable. You have been dismissing our articles about top hedge fund stocks mostly because you were fed biased information by other media outlets about hedge funds’ poor performance. You could have doubled the size of your nest egg by investing in the top hedge fund stocks instead of dumb S&P 500 ETFs. Below you can watch our video about the top 5 hedge fund stocks right now. All of these stocks had positive returns in 2020.

Video: Top 5 Stocks Among Hedge Funds

At Insider Monkey we leave no stone unturned when looking for the next great investment idea. For example, we believe electric vehicles and energy storage are set to become giant markets, and we want to take advantage of the declining lithium prices amid the COVID-19 pandemic. So we asked astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson about Tesla, Elon Musk, and his top stock picks. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. Our best call in 2020 was shorting the market when S&P 500 was trading at 3150 after realizing the coronavirus pandemic’s significance before most investors. You can subscribe to our free enewsletter below to receive our stories in your inbox:

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.