Thanks for signing up for DividendStocks.com! It's the daily newsletter built for dividend and income investors. Before we can begin sending your daily updates, there’s one quick step left. Please confirm your subscription using the link below so our emails reach your inbox. Click Here to Confirm Your Subscription to DividendStocks.com Here’s a small glimpse of what you’ll get access to: Dividend Stock Ideas — Each newsletter features dividend stocks with high yields, sustainable payouts, and strong growth potential. Ex-Dividend Stocks — Want to capture upcoming dividend payouts? Find out which stocks are going ex-dividend this week. Market News and Events — Stay in the loop on the latest developments impacting popular dividend names like AT&T, Exxon Mobil, IBM, Procter & Gamble, and Verizon. Bonus: As a thank-you for confirming, you’ll also receive a free PDF copy of Automatic Income, our popular guide to building wealth through dividend investing. Let’s get your dividend journey started! Discover Top Income-Generating Stocks Here See you in your inbox soon,
The DividendStocks.com Team P.S. Don’t miss out click here to verify your subscription and secure your daily dividend insights and your free investing guide!
Additional Reading from MarketBeat.com Why Mastercard and Visa Are the Definition of Forever StocksSubmitted by Jordan Chussler. Published: 3/14/2026. 
Key Takeaways - The financials sector has lagged the S&P 500 this year, but two payment processing giants continue to deliver the kind of margins and earnings consistency that define long-term holdings.
- Despite recent sector-wide struggles, Visa and Mastercard function as a veritable duopoly, controlling over 90% of payments outside of China.
- Visa hasn't missed on earnings in 10 years, while Mastercard has secured 21 consecutive quarterly beats.
After finishing the past two years with an average annual gain of nearly 23%, the financials sector has struggled this year. With a year-to-date loss of around 9%, the cohort ranks last among the S&P 500's 11 sectors. Zooming out, however, the companies that comprise the sector have proven to be key components of buy-and-hold investors' portfolios. Famed historian Yuval Noah Harari recently issued a warning that should send a shiver down the spine of every American. He predicts the emergence of a massive new useless class. These aren't just people who are temporarily unemployed. These are people who have become economically irrelevant. As Luke Lango and I just exposed in our recent interview, we have reached the singularity. For the first time in 250 years, intelligence has been decoupled from labor. During America's first 1776 moment, the steam engine replaced muscle. In this new 1776 moment, AI is replacing the human mind.
This is why you see the Magnificent 7 tech giants adding trillions in value while the real economy feels like it's in a death spiral. The divide is widening. On one side: the useless class who cling to old-world skills. On the other: the new aristocracy who own the assets of the technological republic. Luke and I have identified the three specific money moves our research indicates you must make to ensure you stay on the winning side of this divide. See the three moves to stay on the winning side of AI With high-quality growth stocks increasingly difficult to find, two legacy companies in the global payment-processing and digital-payments markets continue to generate profit margins that qualify them as true "forever stocks." Why Digital Payment and Payment Processors Make for Good Forever Stocks These firms have historically enjoyed higher profit margins than many other industries, thanks to high-volume demand, automation, and technology-driven business models that translate into low marginal costs per transaction. The industry is also poised for strong growth. According to industry analytics firm Grand View Research, the global payment processing solutions market, valued at nearly $48 billion in 2022, is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.5% through 2030, reaching nearly $140 billion by the start of the next decade. Grand View also forecasts that the digital payment market, valued at more than $114 billion in 2024, will expand at a 21.4% CAGR through 2030, reaching more than $361 billion. While those growth rates and attractive gross margins might suggest the space is crowded, two of the largest names in the industry still operate in a near-duopoly, handling over 90% of credit-card and digital payments processed outside China. With roots dating back to the mid-1900s, these companies control much of the payments infrastructure, allowing them to set fees, limit competition and sustain strong margins. Even with potential disruptors such as Block (NYSE: XYZ), with its Cash App, and PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL), with Venmo, none fit the "forever stock" profile as cleanly as the two below. Mastercard: The $450 Billion Market Cap Company Focusing on Tech Integration Since Michael Miebach became CEO of Mastercard (NYSE: MA) in 2021, management has focused on expanding tech platforms, supporting cross-border commerce, and developing services that help clients reduce fraud, streamline payment flows, and leverage payments data for insights. In 2025, Mastercard posted record revenue and net income. Revenue of nearly $33 billion represented a year-over-year increase of more than 16%, while net income of nearly $15 billion rose by a similar margin. That profitability was driven in large part by a reported 100% gross margin in 2025, enabled by tech integrations and a minimal cost of goods sold—so much so that the company's quarterly gross profit closely matched its quarterly net revenue. For investors, that has translated into consistent earnings performance. The last time Mastercard missed earnings was Q3 2020 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic; since then, the company has delivered 21 consecutive quarterly earnings beats. Most recently, Mastercard reported Q4 2025 EPS of $4.76, a nearly 25% year-over-year increase. Analysts expect earnings to rise roughly 17% in the year ahead, from $15.91 to $18.61 per share. At the same time, Mastercard has been evolving from a traditional payment network into an AI-driven, software-focused company that emphasizes enhanced security, simplified B2B transactions with virtual cards, and agentic AI tools. Icing the cake, Mastercard pays a dividend. While the yield is modest (currently about 0.69%), the company has increased its payout for 13 consecutive years. Its dividend payout ratio is a conservative 21.07%, and the annualized five-year dividend growth rate is 13.70%. Visa: Evolving and Adapting Since 1958 Visa (NYSE: V) operates a network-based model that lets partner banks and financial institutions issue branded payment products while Visa focuses on infrastructure, standards and technology integration. Like Mastercard, Visa is rapidly integrating fintech solutions—focusing on AI-driven tools and blockchain-based settlement—with the stated aim of shifting from traditional card-based transactions to more flexible, digital-first experiences by 2026. That strategy helped Visa report record revenue and net income in 2025. Revenue came in at about $40 billion—an 11% year-over-year increase—while net income approached $20 billion. Visa's consistency is notable: it hasn't missed on earnings in the past 10 years. Over that stretch, the company met analyst expectations twice and beat EPS estimates 38 times. Much of this performance stems from Visa's strong economics: the company posted a nearly 83% gross profit margin in 2025, consistent with its 10-year average. Like its counterpart, Visa pays a modest dividend, currently yielding about 0.87%. Its dividend payout ratio is roughly 25.14%, the annualized five-year dividend growth rate is 14.48%, and the company has raised its payout for 17 consecutive years.
| 
