Visa's recently-published quarterly results which were very good, as usual. They routinely deliver double-digit growth in all company financial metrics (payment volumes, net revenue, profits, etc).

Visa is the world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and governments in over 200 countries. Their nearest competitor is Mastercard, which is significantly smaller, but also a good business.

There was lots of spending over the festive season, all around the world. Visa's net revenue was $9.5 billion, an increase of 10%. The highest-margin activity, cross-border money switches, rose by 16% on a constant dollar basis.

What else was news in the quarter? Visa bought Featurespace, a developer of real-time AI payments protection technology that prevents payments fraud. They bought back $3.9 billion worth of shares. Finally, they dished out a quarterly cash dividend of $0.59 payable in early March.

Almost all Vestact clients own Visa shares and with good reason. They are one of the finest companies on the planet, and they never stop growing. They've had a good run recently and are trading at an all-time high.

I forgot how volatile things were during Trump's first administration. Yesterday was a reminder of his strange leadership style as 25% tariffs were meant to go into effect on Mexican and Canadian goods. Taxes on imports from both countries have been delayed for 30 days after calls between their respective presidents.

The tariffs on Mexico and Canada were announced over the weekend, resulting in some loud backlash from different quarters in the US. When Rupert Murdoch's pro-business, conservative Wall Street Journal writes an opinion piece called The dumbest trade war in history, that puts things into perspective. Here is the closing paragraph from the article.

"None of this is supposed to happen under the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement that Mr. Trump negotiated and signed in his first term. The US willingness to ignore its treaty obligations, even with friends, won't make other countries eager to do deals. Maybe Mr. Trump will claim victory and pull back if he wins some token concessions. But if a North American trade war persists, it will qualify as one of the dumbest in history."

OpenAI is reportedly in early talks to secure up to $40 billion in new funding, which could double its valuation, from $157 billion to $340 billion, making it the second-most valuable private company behind SpaceX.

SoftBank is expected to invest up to $25 billion and is in discussions with other investors to join the round. This follows a $6.6 billion valuation boost only four months ago, highlighting the massive investor interest in AI.

This is positive for the AI sector which was rattled by the turbulence from the DeepSeek saga. OpenAI's progress shows that investor confidence is still strong with long-term growth prospects remaining very attractive.

Hospitals can be grim. Sometimes a bit out-of-the-box thinking can help - Dogs ease staff and patient stress.

New business creation soared during the Covid pandemic. Building a successful business is still very tough - Startup closures increase 25% in 2024.

Asian markets rose this morning after Trump delayed tariffs on Mexico and Canada and pledged to resume talks with China. Optimism lifted benchmarks across the Asia-Pacific region, with Chinese shares in Hong Kong jumping nearly 4%.

In local company news, Vodacom shares surged 5.7% on strong fourth-quarter results with group revenue hitting R39.5 billion (+12.6% normalised). Egypt led with 54.9% growth, while SA revenue climbed 4.7%.

US equity futures are slightly lower in early pre-market trade. The Rand is at R18.80 to the US Dollar.

This evening we'll be waiting for results from two more Vestact-recommended stocks, Google and Amgen. We'll also be interested in numbers from AMD and Spotify.

Enjoy your Tuesday.