Top 5 Financial Stocks Today

2. Visa Inc. (NYSE: V)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 166   

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is a California-based company that primarily facilitates electronic money transfers. It was founded in 1958 and is placed second on our list of top 10 financial stocks today. The company offers debit cards, credit cards, and other financial services under brands like Visa, Visa Electron, Interlink, VPAY, and PLUS. Visa stock has returned more than 26% to investors over the past year. Visa also operates the popular VisaNet, a transaction processing network making digital payments easier for businesses.

On April 28, Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) stock jumped more than 2% on the back of strong fiscal quarter earnings that beat market estimates on revenue and earnings per share. Net revenue for the fiscal quarter ended March 31 was $5.73 billion, beating market forecasts of $5.5 billion. 

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2020, 166 hedge funds in the database of Insider Monkey held stakes worth $23.5 billion in the firm, up from 160 in the preceding quarter worth $18.6 billion. 

In its Q1 2021 investor letter, Wedgewood Partners, an investment management firm, highlighted a few stocks and Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) was one of them.

“Visa payment volume recovered along with consumer spending habits, finishing up +5% during the December quarter; but it skewed heavily toward online purchases, particularly with debit. Historically, Visa has had a meaningful portion of its volume derived from higher-yielding credit card spending related to cross-border travel and entertainment (T&E). As many countries maintain closed borders, Visa’s cross-border T&E segment has stayed depressed. However, we expect this business will rebound as borders inevitably reopen to COVID-19 vaccinated populations. In the meantime, we trimmed Visa to help fund a reestablished position in Booking Holdings, which should disproportionately benefit from the aforementioned reopening as well.”