Visa Q4 - Steady growth

On Tuesday night, Visa reported a solid set of results. It is always nice when our stocks have better revenue and profit numbers than the market expects. For the quarter, Visa had revenue of $9.6 billion and net income of $5.3 billion, both up 12% from September last year. To generate all that cash, Visa processed 75 billion transactions, up 11%. The key segment of cross-border payments was up a healthy 16%.

Given that Visa is linked to most parts of the global economy, the results are always a good indication of what is happening on the ground. Visa executives said that international travel continues to be healthy, particularly out of the US and Europe, but flagged that Asia-Pacific has been weak. This is a similar trend to what we have seen from the luxury goods companies. The world's largest payments processor said strong e-commerce trends have helped offset weakness in Asian markets.

Looking ahead, Visa maintained its guidance of 'low double-digit growth' for both revenue and profit. Keeping the guidance steady shows Visa's confidence in the global economy and the consumer's ability to continue spending. We are happy holders of Visa, and agree that the global economy is still looking strong.