Smart investments change lives.
Take Visa (V -2.04%), for example. It's hardly the most exciting stock around, but it has consistently beaten the S&P 500 over the last decade.
The result? Big financial gains for investors smart enough to buy and patient enough to hold.
As of this writing, Visa has generated a compound annual growth rate of 18.6%, dating back to March 23, 2025. Over the same period, the S&P 500's compound annual growth rate was 12.6%.
That means that an investor who bought $25,000 of Visa stock on March 23, 2015, would now have a position worth about $137,000 after price appreciation and reinvested dividend payments. Visa currently pays a modest dividend of $2.36 per share on an annualized basis, which gives it a dividend yield of about 0.7% at today's share price.
V Total Return Level data by YCharts.
Is Visa stock a buy now?
So, is now a good time to consider buying Visa shares? I think so, and here's why.
Visa operates an enormous payment network that facilitates literally tens of billions of dollars worth of transactions every single day. In its fiscal 2025 first quarter, which ended on Dec. 31, the company reported $4.1 trillion in payment volume across its network. That staggering sum drove $9.5 billion in revenue and $5.1 billion in net income.
Visa's business model is simple, steady, and lucrative. As a result, owning its stock has been a smart choice for more than a decade.
Accordingly, investors would be wise to give this stock a close look.
