By Andrew Bary

This article is an excerpt from "Amazon and 9 More Stocks to Buy for 2026," published on Dec. 12, 2025. To see the full list, click here.

Stablecoins. Buy now, pay later. Pushback on fees. Concerns about these issues -- and more -- have made Visa stock a laggard in 2025, gaining just 5%.

But no matter the worry, Visa has dodged those challenges and continues to generate some of the most consistent double-digit earnings growth among megacap companies. It has even become a leader in stablecoins, a dollar-backed cryptocurrency that some feared would disrupt it.

"I can count on all my fingers and toes the number of times there have been concerns about the strength of the moat," Matt Stucky, chief equities portfolio manager at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management, told Barron's in November.

The stock, now around $325, trades for 26 times projected earnings in its fiscal year ending in September 2026, down from an average of 31 times over the past five years. It also has Nvidia-like net margins of about 55%.

Visa sees low-double-digit gains in revenue and earnings in the coming year, and it returns most of its profits to shareholders in stock buybacks -- 3% of its shares in the latest fiscal year -- and a nearly 1% dividend.

Visa continues to have a long runway for growth as the world moves away from cash to plastic and beyond.

Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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January 02, 2026 01:00 ET (06:00 GMT)

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