Visa Q3 - Steady, As She Goes

Earnings season is in full swing, and here's another one. Visa reported great results on Tuesday night. Remember that this company facilitates electronic funds transfers throughout the world, mostly through Visa-branded credit cards and debit cards.

Covid lockdowns severely restricted cross-border, travel-related, multi-currency, high-value money transfers. On the other hand, the pandemic caused a surge in low-value point of sale card payments (at the expense of cash) and boosted all sorts of e-commerce and other online payments.

Visa did really well, despite this tricky environment. Total processed transactions were up 39% year-on-year.

We expect a sharp recovery in travel, entertainment, and restaurant spending, as well as affluent cardholder spending as the year wears on. Following the results, many sell-side research items have been raising their earnings estimates.

Visa is a very steady performer, see the 5-year chart below. The stock price just keeps crawling higher, month after month. It's close to an all-time high, around $250 per share, but it's still a great buy.