Non-Cuttable Expenses: A Hidden Opportunity For Financial Growth

Jan. 16, 2026 8:30 MTBA, UTF

Rida Morwa Investing Group Leader

Summary

• Mortgages form the backbone of home affordability in America and represent an expense that cannot be cut without catastrophic household consequences.
• Utilities are in heavy demand, and operators can raise prices without losing customers.
• We discuss our top picks from these non-negotiable expenses, offering yields of up to 7.5%.
• Looking for more investing ideas like this one? Get them exclusively at High Dividend Opportunities. 

Co-authored with Hidden Opportunities

Every new year almost always begins the same way, with resolutions. We plan to eat better, lose weight, exercise more, sleep more, read more, save, and invest more. The goals are diverse, and we set out with the best intentions, aiming to create a better version of ourselves.

Yet, once the calendar flips, reality quickly reasserts itself. Despite the intentions being good, our time constraints don’t magically disappear, and our habits and priorities don’t magically reorganize themselves. Life keeps moving at the same pace it always has, and keeping up that New Year’s resolution requires serious effort. This isn’t a secret, and it is why the second Friday of January is often considered “Quitters Day,” when the energy and the momentum behind the resolutions tend to fade.

You may be interested to know that cancelling streaming services like Netflix (NFLX) is typically a popular New Year’s resolution as part of the general household audit for many consumers. Amidst rapidly rising costs of goods and services, a wider pursuit of resolutions to find areas to cut expenses wouldn’t be surprising. Yet, there are a few places where the expenses are unavoidable and must be made, even to maintain a modest lifestyle and well-being.

Without fail, you will pay your mortgage and your utility bills. These expenses won’t take a break, whether your resolution to optimize spending stays strong or wanes. Let us dive into our top picks that benefit from this necessity.

Pick No. 1: MTBA – Yield 6%

Owning a home has historically been regarded as a symbol of success and forms an important pillar of the American dream. Out of 85.6 million owner-occupied homes, 51.6 million (60%) have outstanding mortgages. It is fair to say that mortgages are a helping hand for millions of Americans to realize their dream. At the end of September 2025, household mortgage balances totaled $13.07 trillion, representing 82% of all household debt.

That simple mortgage you took from your favorite bank isn’t that simple after all. The bank doesn’t hold it on its balance sheet for 30 years, only to collect interest from you. Banks sell the loan to aggregators, which happen to be government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae, who pool hundreds of thousands of mortgages together to form a security known as MBS (mortgage-backed security). When homeowners make principal and interest payments, the loan servicer collects them and passes them through to investors.

Who are these investors?

U.S. banks, depository institutions, and the Federal Reserve happen to be the largest investors in agency MBS.

Why would these institutions invest in mortgage-backed securities? Isn’t there a risk of mortgage default?

Fixed-rate agency MBS securities are guaranteed by government-sponsored institutions like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae. These securities hold 30-year, 20-year, and 15-year mortgages that were securitized by these agencies. So, even if individual borrowers default, these agencies would guarantee payments to investors.

Agency MBS are AAA-rated and present exceptionally safe investments with negligible default risk, making them at par with U.S. Treasuries.

Agency MBS are only available to institutions, which means as an individual investor, you can only buy them through diversified funds or mortgage REITs. The latter often use leverage, which makes them highly sensitive to interest rates. Diversified funds, on the other hand, present a wide range of options for investors.

Simplify MBS ETF (MTBA) is an ETF that invests in Agency MBS with no leverage. This fund focuses on buying newer MBS, which typically carry higher coupons and pay higher yield to maturity, and shorter durations of 3-4 years.

In 2025, MTBA gained due to greater inflows of institutional capital into MBS, as spreads to Treasuries tightened. This resulted in MTBA delivering better total returns than our frequently discussed AAA-CLO ETF—Janus Henderson AAA CLO ETF (JAAA).

Looking ahead, there is room for further tightening in agency MBS spreads, and MTBA offers a low but steady CD-beating 6% yield with no credit risk.

With MTBA, you are partly funding the American dream of homeownership while collecting low-risk monthly distributions.

Pick No. 2: UTF – Yield 7.6%

Utility costs continue to outpace inflation, driven by heavy demand from big tech data center ambitions. The U.S. power grid is aging and inadequate for the soaring demand, making the unit costs higher for every sector, with the residential base experiencing the worst effects. Data Source

Cohen & Steers Infrastructure Fund (UTF) is a CEF (closed-end fund) dedicated to investing in infrastructure, as its name suggests. The fund’s assets are invested across electric utility, midstream, gas distribution firms, freight rail, towers, etc. The fund has a notable allocation into fixed-income securities from these essential sectors. In fact, energy (electricity, gas, and midstream) represents almost 50% of the portfolio. Source

UTF’s top holdings are some of the largest global corporations in their respective subsectors, with a notable callout that they aren’t direct competitors in major business areas. Rather than serving as direct competitors, these firms occupy separate geographic or industrial niches and often act as complementary partners within the infrastructure supply chain. UTF’s top 10 holdings represent a third of the CEF’s invested assets.

If you look at UTF’s price and NAV performance, they have been in unison over the past five years, climbing together in the near-zero economy, being weighed down due to the headwinds from rate hikes, and a predictable recovery with rate cuts. And there is one place where they clearly break the pattern, in Fall 2025.

This is when UTF announced a rights offering, which was completed in October, resulting in the issuance of 14.9 million shares to raise $353 million in proceeds. The offering led to a 15% dilution to shareholders, and the entire process led to a +10% drop in the CEF’s price, despite NAV remaining relatively steady. So what happened? Value remained the same, but investors’ perception of that value changed, creating an opportunity.

Despite a steady NAV level over the five-year period marked by volatile interest rates, UTF has distributed steady monthly income to shareholders, amounting to $9.30/share, which has mostly been tax-friendly, in the form of Long-Term Capital Gains and Qualified Dividends.

Looking ahead, infrastructure projects will be expensive due to the natural effects of inflation on materials and labor—creating a steep barrier for competition. Existing infrastructure is aging and inadequate, but companies owning them are best positioned to maintain and slowly expand those assets while enjoying powerful asset monetization. With UTF, you can be a beneficiary of this strength, with 7.6% yields.

Conclusion

MTBA and UTF are two very different securities. One leans on structured, government-backed cash flows from millions of people pursuing their American Dream; the other draws income from real assets that provide critical services. Their drivers are different, their risks are different, and that is precisely how we like to invest.

At High Dividend Opportunities, we build portfolios with this sort of contrast by design. Rather than relying on a single sector or macro outcome, we combine complementary income sources to generate reliable cash flow across any market cycle. Summer or winter, bull or bear market, high or low-interest rates—I need my dividends, and I need them now.

Rates will move, politics will shift, narratives will change, and volatility will return, but our simple yet disciplined, diversified income strategy allows us to stay invested, stay flexible, and continue getting paid along the way. This is the beauty of our income method and the power of income investing.

Saba Capital has 5.34% stake in GCP

GCP Infrastructure Investments as of Tuesday, up vs none known

Current yield 9.6%

Current discount to NAV 28%

hi88 hi88-vi.comx

Appreciation to my father who stated to me regarding this website, this weblog is actually remarkable.

Well done Dad.

Nickolai Hubble | January 22, 2026

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Dear Reader,

The stock market used to be about companies raising capital to invest in new projects. Today, it’s more of a casino.

People watch prices, not companies. In some cases, they ignore the underlying investment altogether and focus solely on prices.

Our pension funds often plough our money into the stock market without considering what the companies are actually up to.

Most trading in stocks shuffles money between investors, rather than being used for anything good in the economy.

Worse still, many venture capitalists see the stock market as their exit strategy. A way to cash out their gains by selling to the public.

The stock market has lost its soul and its true purpose.

Benjamin Graham

The AI Bubble Is Overblown (But This 10.6% Dividend Wins Either Way)

Michael Foster, Investment Strategist

Is 2026 going to be the year the AI “bubble” finally bursts?

Maybe my use of quotes there tipped you off to my true opinion: Worries about an AI bubble are vastly overdone.

And today we’re going to grab a 10.6%-paying closed-end fund (CEF) that wins either way: If I’m wrong and there is an AI bubble (that pops), cash will flow into it. If not, that’s fine: We’ll happily collect its growing 10.6% payout.

From Silicon Valley to Wall Street

Of course, the AI CEOs agree with me that there is no AI bubble: Sam Altman, Elon Musk and the heads of Microsoft (MSFT), Meta Platforms (META), Alphabet (GOOGL) and Oracle (ORCL) are all bullish and willing to spend trillions on the tech.

But another group also agrees that AI-bubble fears are overdone: a cadre of hedge funds and institutional investors that regularly hold tech titans like Musk, Zuckerberg and friends accountable—and know the “plumbing” of the tech world even better than the billionaire set does.

You can see what I’m talking about here in the fight between Elon Musk and institutional investors over the latter group short-selling stocks like Tesla (TSLA). Musk has complained about this repeatedly, but this short selling does give companies an incentive to do better, so their stocks don’t end up shorted. A kind of accountability emerges as a result.

Coatue and the Tech Hedge Fund World

All of this brings me to Coatue Management. It’s a tech hedge fund that began during the dot-com bubble and not only survived but grew from $45 million in assets at its launch to about $70 billion today.

Over that time, Coatue has shorted many tech stocks, so it has experience in keeping corporate managers from getting tied up in indulgent behaviors that lose money for investors. Coatue also has plenty of experience with bubbles.

So when Coatue dismisses talk of an AI bubble, we should listen. And that’s exactly what it did late last month, when it posted this chart:

Here we see that over the last three years, there has been surprisingly little growth in the amount of money invested in corporate bonds issued to fund the tech, media and telecom sectors. (That’s the “TMT” in the title—those are the companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle.)

The 0%, 3% and 9% gain in total debt issuances from 2023 to 2025 in these sectors suggest the bond market is not overly exposed to AI, and that there’s still a lot of room for debt to grow. Also, the comparison with the dot-com boom’s surging debt growth (on the left side of the chart) tells us the current situation is likely not a bubble—at least not yet.

To be sure, private debt and creative financing of some AI projects means a lot of AI borrowing isn’t shown on this chart. But that was also true of the dot-com era. And estimates of both again show we’re far from a bubble today.

But even if we were, the fact remains that corporate bonds are not overly exposed to AI. Moreover, bond holders tend to demand more discipline around costs.

The AI Hedge Move

If the corporate-bond market isn’t overly exposed to AI, then any volatility prompted by AI-bubble worries will likely drive cash from stocks to corporate bonds. That makes the corporate-bond market the perfect hedge for anyone worried about a selloff.

There’s just one thing: AI bubble fears are fading and have been since they peaked in November, at least according to internet search traffic.

AI Bubble Fears on the Backburner—for Now

I know what you’re thinking. “Markets are calm. AI bubble fears are fading, so why worry about this now?” The low fear means the market is not pricing in the potential of investors looking to hedge against AI in the future. That’s left corporate bonds cheaper than they should be.

In other words, we can buy into bonds now that the market isn’t hedging, wait for any stock volatility to boost demand for said bonds, then sell those bonds to investors.

Take a look at this chart.

Bond CEF Underperformance Highlights Our Opportunity

Source: CEF Insider

I started 2025 bullish on corporate bond CEFs until September, when we sold three of these funds from our CEF Insider portfolio.

The reason is in the chart above: September was when CEF Insider’s corporate-bond-fund subindex (in black) began lagging its equity-fund subindex (in brown). So CEF Insider focused more on equity funds, which have outperformed since.

Now that bond funds are on sale, and stand to gain on any short-term worries over an AI bubble, it’s time to cycle back to some of them. But how? Through a CEF, of course!

Buying corporate bonds individually is difficult, and bond ETFs typically underperform. But a CEF like the BlackRock Corporate High Yield Fund (HYT) is a great way to buy in, both now and over the next few weeks.

HYT Clobbers Its Benchmark

HYT yields 10.6% today and has raised its payout around 11% in the last decade. That’s in contrast to the corporate-bond benchmark SPDR Bloomberg High Yield Bond ETF (JNK), which has actually seen payouts fall a bit. Even better, HYT (in purple above) has outperformed JNK (in orange).

An even better reason to buy HYT is that today’s low bond demand means the CEF is especially cheap:

A Sudden Discount Appears

In the last six months, HYT’s discount to net asset value (NAV) has dropped to levels not seen since 2022 and 2023, after a long period of trading around par. This is an opportunity for us, putting short-term upside on the table if the fund’s discount evaporates again, like it did at the end of 2023.

With that in mind, buying HYT now is a solid value play, with demand for a hedge against an AI bubble waiting in the wings. And then, of course, there’s the 10.6% dividend.

This Life-Changing 11%

Dividend Is About to

Drop Its Next Big Payout

Dear Reader,

Imagine what an 11% dividend could do for you in this volatile market…

That’s $917 every month on a $100k investment …

$22,000 in yearly dividends on $200k …

Invest half a million and you’re looking at $55,000 per year.

That’s a decent middle-class income in many parts of the US!

Got more? Great!

A $1-million buy-in would land you $110,000+ in dividends every single year!

You can see where this is going …

No more grinding down your principal by withdrawing some “magic” percentage year after year …

No more worrying about running out of money in retirement …

No more sleepless nights wondering which way the market winds will blow next.

From 12% Yields, 14% Gains to the Next Dividend Train Leaving the Station

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: January 21, 2026

When we buy dividend stocks, we’re looking for more than just the dividend. Price gains are preferred as well.

Greedy? Nah. Not if we time our buys right. It is possible to have our payouts and watch our stocks go up, too.

Two months ago, we recommended Annaly Capital (NLY) in these pages. Annaly dished a safe 12.9% dividend, well-funded by income. And the mortgage REIT (mREIT) had upside potential to boot.

Vanilla investors were worried about a recession, missing a time-tested maxim of income investing: As rates fall, REITs rise. This “rate-REIT seesaw” was about to tip and catapult Annaly’s price higher.

Here’s why. Annaly is a “financial landlord” which owns government-backed mortgages that rise in value as long-term rates fall. Those mortgage bonds that are essentially locked in at higher rates. So, as mortgage rates drop, the mREIT’s stash turns into a lucrative collector’s edition.

The stock was an interest rate trade rolled up in a tasty 12.9% payout wrapper. And rates drop anytime investors merely worry about a recession. It doesn’t matter if the slowdown comes to fruition or not!

I liked the trade so much that we doubled down a couple of weeks later, this time highlighting Annaly peer mREIT Dynex Capital (DX) as an additional play. Dynex paid 14.7% at the time and its management team was salivating over historically high mortgage spreads.

Since then, mortgage rates have dropped because the administration wants them lower to boost affordability and housing economic activity. With each tick down, Annaly and Dynex portfolio gained in value—exactly as we discussed.

Annaly has returned 14% in two months (115% annualized!) since its feature here in Contrarian Outlook:

Annaly Rallies 14% in 2 Months

Dynex has been solid too, rewarding investors with 5% gains (56% annualized) since we doubled down on mREITs.

If you bought these stocks, congratulations! If you missed them, rather than “chase” while they’re hot, let’s talk about the next income play.

We hear about AI nonstop. Chips. Models. Software.

But AI’s real constraint isn’t code. It’s electricity.

Every prompt, model update, and shiny new app runs on racks of servers in data centers. They don’t sip power. They chug it, huffing and puffing 24/7. And demand is rising far faster than supply.

Now Washington is stepping in.

Last week, the Trump administration and several Northeastern governors agreed on an unprecedented plan: force tech giants to fund new power plants themselves. The idea is simple. If Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet want massive data centers, they’ll sign 15-year contracts to pay for the electricity—whether they use it or not.

That does two critical things for investors.

First, it sends the message that regular Americans won’t foot the bill for AI’s power binge. Data centers usually mean higher rates for residential and business users around them.

Second—and more important for us—the power proposal would create long-term, contract-backed revenue for power generators, grid infrastructure and utilities. This is exactly the kind of predictable cash flow income investors crave.

The proposal would support roughly $15 billion in new power plant construction, backed by guaranteed revenue contracts. This means utilities can borrow (usually at favorable rates) to build the additional electricity generated to keep rates down. Which boosts utility profits.

Reaves Utility Income Fund (UTG) gives us a diversified basket of these power companies to play this, with a nice payout! UTG is a closed-end fund built for income investors like us. We buy it, collect a 6.3% dividend paid monthly and don’t need to sweat individual utility earnings events thanks to the diversified portfolio.

A Steady 6.3% Dividend, Paid Monthly

The timing for UTG is ideal from a rates standpoint, too. Its utility holdings are bond proxies, which means they trade inverse to interest rates. As rates continue to decline, this group will rally as investors move cash from money market funds into it, likely boosting UTG’s price, adding to the total return.

AI chips need juice. UTG owns the power brokers that provide it. It’s the next “dividend train” about to leave the station. Don’t miss it.

The Snowball has a comparison share VWRP, with the same starting date of the Snowball, current value £152,766.00

Not too shabby performance, so although the ETF pays a dividend, VWRP is an accumulation Trust but the dividend is minimal but could be an option for part of your portfolio when the market sells off.

The current comparison.

VWRP using the 4% rule would provide a ‘pension’ of £6,110

The Snowball returned income for 2025 of £11,914.00 and the 2026 target is 10k.

You’re ten years from retirement: how to retire comfortably

Story by Marc Shoffman

Retirement planning is important for all ages but as costs rise, having a financial strategy in place can be all the more important as you get closer to your golden years.

Ten years is typically the recommended time to start laying the groundwork for retirement and considering how you will access your hard-earned pension savings.

A retiree would need a gross income of £52,000 to obtain that figure, according to Fidelity International and the asset manager suggests this would require a pension pot of around £700,000 at age 65.

That figure may rise if you are 10 years off retiring but it is worth considering how much you need to save into a pension to get to this pot size in the first place.

According to Fidelity’s projections, someone starting at age 25 would need to save £459 each month to reach that goal by 65, based on annual returns of 5%.

A 35-year-old would need to save £841 monthly, while a 45-year-old would need £1,703 a month – almost four times the commitment required at 25.

Start at age 55 and you would need to contribute £4,508 per month

Ed Monk, associate director at Fidelity International, said: “Our research figures show that many people are taking positive steps towards improving their retirement prospects – whether that’s increasing contributions or planning to retire early. But intention alone isn’t enough.

“With the cost of retirement rising and expectations shifting, it’s vital that savers understand what kind of lifestyle their savings can realistically support.”

Those figures may look scary but there are steps you can take to stay on track for a comfortable retirement.

We share a retirement checklist for those planning to leave the workforce in 10 years’ time.

1. Check your state pension forecast

The full state pension – currently at £11,973 per year – will help cover some of your expenses but the amount may depend on the future of the triple lock.

You can check your state pension forecast at Gov.uk and see if there are any gaps in your national insurance record that you could fill by purchasing extra credits to boost your payments.

However, the state pension age is on the rise and is set to increase from 66 to 67 in 2026 so you may have to wait longer for the money depending on when you retire

2. Get to grips with your pension pots

The 10-year point is a good time to consolidate your pension pot and boost your pension contributions to maximise those final years of saving.

Monk said: “The decade before retirement often coincides with peak earning years, use this time to maximise pension contributions and make full use of ISA allowances.

“Consolidating older pensions may also help reduce fees.”

Ross Lacey, director at Fairview Financial Planning says a good starting point is to track current expenditure, factoring in what will be different by the time you retire.

“The next steps are working out what you’ll need your pensions, investments and cash to look like, and to do for you, in order to make that plan viable

“Naturally, a professional financial planner does this with clients day-in-day-out.”

3. Reassess your investment strategy

Monk warns against de-risking too early but at some point you will need to consider moving out of risky equity products to get some security such as through bonds.

He suggests that five years is a good time to consider how you will access your funds such as through an annuity, drawdown or both, and whether you will still be able to afford your desired lifestyle.

Philly Ponniah, chartered wealth manager at Philly Financial, added: “This isn’t about moving everything into cash, but shifting the balance. You may want to reduce risk slightly while keeping enough growth assets to stay ahead of inflation.”

Once you are two years away from retirement, Monk suggests deciding how and when to draw different pots, and secure essential expenses with guaranteed income.

He said: “Check that your expected costs align with your lifestyle goals. Don’t forget to factor in inflation and any remaining debts.”

Many retirees follow the 4% withdrawal rule to ensure their pension pot doesn’t run out of cash.

At this point in your life, when you plan to retire in two years, Monk suggests updating your documents, such as reviewing your will, setting up powers of attorney and planning for long-term care.

4. Beyond pensions

A pension may be just one asset you use to fund your retirement and other routes include running a buy-to-let portfolio.

Kundan Bhaduri, from property developer The Kushman Group, suggests the 10-year point is a good time to stress test your property portfolio.

He said: “Will your rentals still deliver net income if rates stay high or tenants become scarce? Prioritise reducing debt on the properties you plan to hold.”

OR you could have a dividend re-investment plan and guess what you keep all your capital as well !!

Especially if you don’t think you will have a retirement pot of £700,000 at age 65.

On the seed capital of 100k it would provide a pension of 17%, the Snowball started on the 09/09/2022. The current target yield for this year is 10%.

Remember with compound growth you stand to make more in the last few years of saving for retirement, than in all the early years.

This Cheap Dividend Just Jumped 13.6% (and We’re Buying)

Brett Owens, Chief Investment Strategist
Updated: January 20, 2026

As contrarians, we love it when a solid dividend grower drops on headline-driven fear.

And I see the recent decline in shares of Visa (V)—a Hidden Yields holding that hikes its payout double-digits yearly—as our next opportunity to cash in as the mainstream crowd frets.

You probably know that the stock fell on President Trump’s talk of limiting credit-card interest rates to 10% for one year. Investors, in typical “knee jerk” fashion, swiftly sold off this reliable payment toll booth.

That’s too bad for them—but it’s great for us. We now have a chance to buy a stout dividend grower at a bargain.

Visa’s Misunderstood Business Model

Investors often confuse Visa with a bank or other lender, but it’s not: Visa—and “duopoly” partner Mastercard (MA)—do not make loans to cardholders.

Instead, the company operates the payment “plumbing”:  Visa’s network is active in 220 countries and processed 329 billion transactions in the year ended September 30.

That’s why we recommend the stock in Hidden Yields: It collects a “toll” on each of those 329 billion (and growing) swipes, taps and clicks. It’s a resilient business if there ever was one. That alone helps hedge it from any fight over card rates.

Visa Is Already a Bargain

Rate-cap talk aside, this stock is already cheap by two key measures.

Bargain Signal #1: Visa Lags the Market

As you can see in purple above, Visa stock has lagged the S&P 500 in the past year, up just over 7%, compared to the market’s 20%. That’s unusual for a stock that’s outperformed the S&P 500 over the last decade.

This recent lag alone will make V stand out to investors—particularly those looking to rotate out of pricey tech stocks.

Then there’s the fact that the company’s share price is lagging its (surging!) dividend:

Bargain Signal #2: Visa Lags Its Payout Growth

The “Dividend Magnet” effect is clear here. Those big hikes—the last one, paid December 1, was 13.6%—are why Visa’s current yield is always around 0.5%. Every time management hikes the payout, investors bid up the stock in response.

You can also see that anyone who bought “bad weather moments” like this (times when Visa’s share price fell behind its dividend growth, in other words) did very well indeed.

And this stock still has plenty of upside, starting with American consumers.

Despite the gloomy headlines, they’re still spending. In November, retail sales jumped 0.6%, topping expectations. And even though it’s down 25% from a year ago, the University of Michigan’s consumer-sentiment indicator rose for the second straight month in January.

Both point to more transactions, and more “tolls,” for Visa in 2026.

“Stablecoins” the Next Big Growth Driver

As we discussed last month, Visa is also setting up to profit from the growth of “stablecoins.” Unlike other cryptocurrencies, stablecoins are pegged to the US dollar.

That’s key because it makes them ideal for international transactions, as they get around pokey, high-fee wire transfers.

By moving into stablecoins, Visa is essentially building the bridge between traditional payments and regulated stablecoin settlements in USD.

In December, the company launched stablecoin settlement in the US—this is behind-the-scenes, bank-to-bank money movement (subject to Visa’s fee, of course!) that happens after you tap your card.

This business is growing quickly. As of November 30, Visa’s monthly stablecoin settlement volume had already reached a $3.5 billion annualized run rate. The “digital dollar” pipes are live in the US. Now that they work, volume can scale fast. The tolls are now being collected.

As more banks and fintech companies issue stablecoins, this number will only grow. Think of a stablecoin like a casino chip, except it’s digital. Inside the “casino” (the stablecoin network), it behaves like money. It’s fast, secure and easy to move. But you still have to get in (swap dollars for stablecoins) and get out (convert back to bank money) when you want to spend in the normal world.

Visa is positioning itself as the cashier’s cage. It’s the bridge that makes these digital dollars usable everywhere.

Management Knows This Stock Is Cheap

Fear of a recession has kept Visa stock capped in the last year, and the latest selloff has added to our opportunity.

Management knows this. In 2025, they dropped $18.2 billion into share buybacks, and they’ve repurchased 9% of the company’s float in the last five years. Buybacks enhance earnings per share (by extension supporting the share price) and boost the dividend, leaving fewer shares on which Visa has to pay out.

A “Fortress” Balance Sheet 

Finally, even if Visa were a lender, its strong balance sheet, with $23.2 billion in cash and investments, just a tad shy of its $25.9-billion debt, gives it a strong cushion here.

So on a net-net basis, Visa is essentially debt-free. That gives it plenty of room to weather any storm and keep its dividends (and buybacks) growing. Let’s buy now, before the crowd figures out the true value of this payout-popping “toll booth.”