This Stock Just Became the No. 1 Performer in the Dow

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 30, 6:02PM EST · Published Jul 27, 7:43AM EDT

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This Stock Just Became the No. 1 Performer in the Dow — © Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

After weeks during which Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT | MSFT Price Prediction) was the best performing Dow Jones industrials stock, its place has been taken by another famous company. Shares of Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) are up 39.22% to $183.69. The Dow is up 16.57% to 27,192.45.

Visa is among the top payment companies in the world. From the standpoint of employees, it is at the bottom end of the Dow with 17,000. The yield per employee is strong, however. Revenue last year was $20.6 billion. Net income was $10.3 billion.

One reason the stock has done so well is the earnings announced last week.

According to Barron’s:

Visa (ticker: V) on Tuesday reported June quarter earnings results above Wall Street expectations.

Visa posted adjusted earnings of $1.37 a share for its fiscal third quarter, versus the $1.32 analyst consensus. It generated $5.8 billion of revenue in the quarter, compared with the $5.7 billion average analyst estimate.

“Visa had an excellent third quarter in terms of accelerating business growth while advancing our strategy through acquisitions, investments and partnerships,” CEO Al Kelly said in the earnings release.

The payments company expects net revenue growth in the “low double-digits” for the full 2019 fiscal year, roughly in-line with the Wall Street consensus.

Reuters editors wrote:

Visa Inc beat analysts’ estimates for quarterly earnings on Tuesday, as a robust economy encouraged customers to spend more and boosted fees for the world’s largest payment processor.

And MarketWatch:

Visa Inc. on Tuesday reported stronger-than-expected financial results for the fiscal third quarter and raised its earnings outlook for the full year.

The company posted net income of $3.1 billion, or $1.37 a share, up from $2.8 billion, or $1 a share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings per share climbed to $1.37 from $1.20 a year prior, while analysts surveyed by FactSet had been modeling $1.33.

Visa’s revenue grew to $5.8 billion for the quarter, up from $5.2 billion in the year-earlier period. The FactSet consensus called for $5.7 billion in quarterly revenue.

Consumer spending is in Visa’s favor. The recent announcement of U.S. gross domestic product was driven by consumer spending, by the way.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.