Jim Cramer Stock Portfolio: Top 10 Stock Picks

8. Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA)

Number of Hedge Funds: 150

Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA) is an interesting Jim Cramer stock pick for 2026. In October, he made the bull case for the payments giant. Here is why he likes the stock:

“They keep putting up steady earnings growth with no credit risk, and their stocks keep chugging along,” Cramer said. “Mastercard’s earnings have risen at a 16.8% compound annual growth rate over the past decade. This one’s slow and steady. I owned it for a long time for the Charitable Trust. I shouldn’t have gotten bored with it. I mean, it’s just such a winner. It’s a great investment. Gotta be patient.”

Ironvine Capital Partners stated the following regarding Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA) in its Q4 2025 investor letter:

“Global payment network Visa and Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA) are uniquely durable businesses, deeply embedded in the plumbing of global commerce thanks to network effects that have been reinforced over several decades. As the connective tissue between card issuers (deposit and lending institutions), merchants, and card holders, Visa and Mastercard remove friction and fraud from the payment process in mostly invisible ways across hundreds of millions of daily transactions. Today, one easily takes for granted the ability to safely pay nearly any entity in the world with minimal cost or complexity. Visa and Mastercard’s unrivaled scale allow them to provide essential payment services to billions of cardholders and 150+ million merchants for a fraction of a penny per dollar transacted while generating tremendous economics for owners… (Click here to read the full text).