Best Blue Chip Companies To Own For 2015

Best Blue Chip Companies To Own For 2015: Visa Inc.(V)

Visa Inc., a payments technology company, engages in the operation of retail electronic payments network worldwide. It facilitates commerce through the transfer of value and information among financial institutions, merchants, consumers, businesses, and government entities. The company owns and operates VisaNet, a global processing platform that provides transaction processing services. It also offers a range of payments platforms, which enable credit, charge, deferred debit, debit, and prepaid payments, as well as cash access for consumers, businesses, and government entities. The company provides its payment platforms under the Visa, Visa Electron, PLUS, and Interlink brand names. In addition, it offers value-added services, including risk management, issuer processing, loyalty, dispute management, value-added information, and CyberSource-branded services. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Philip Springer]

  The U.S. economy grew, sort of, at a miniscule annual rate of 0.1 percent in the first quarter, according to the Commerce Dept. This preliminary reading, the first of three, was far below pessimistic expectations. This underperformance has occurred several times since the on-again, off-again recovery officially began in June 2009.
  
  No wonder U.S. government bond yields have declined this year, contrary to most expectations, with the 10-year Treasury going from 3 percent to as low as 2.6 percent.
  
  The first quarter’s economic weakness was attributed primarily to a 7.6 percent decline in exports, partly because of economic weakness in Europe and Asia. Poor weather, a favorite excuse for everything that went wrong during the winter, probably played a part in the export slump.
  
  Also noteworthy, however: Business spending on equipment fell at a 5.5 percent annual pace in the first three months of the year, the largest decline since 2! 009.
  
  Regardles s of the causes, the tepid (to be generous) GDP reading marks a continuation of the still-sluggish growth in the current five-year economic expansion.
  
  The report came right before the Federal Reserve announced that it is continuing to reduce, or taper, its bond purchases to $45 billion a month, from the original $85 billion. The Fed says it’s starting to see faster growth after the harsh winter.
  
  The Fed also maintained its guidance on short-term interest rates, saying they would remain near zero for a “considerable time” after the bond-buying program ends later this year. The current expectation is that the Fed won’t start to raise interest rates until well into 2015.
  
  However, evidence of a possible economic rebound came the next day, May 2. The federal governments jobs report for April showed a jump of 288,000, with a sharp decline in the official unemployment rate to 6.3 percent.
  
  Meanwhile, corporate profits continue t o grow, albeit modest

• [By Motley Fool Staff]

  Cheap stocks may always be my mainstay, but next downturn, I'll definitely dedicate a portion to quality, too. I've built up a short list of companies I really admire -- companies that could grow at above-average rates for decades. Stocks like Capital One Financial (NYSE: COF  ) , Visa (NYSE: V  ) , and Markel (NYSE: MKL  ) come to mind. And if they go on sale, I'm going to get real interested.

source from Top Penny Stocks For 2015:http://www.topstocksforum.com/best-blue-chip-companies-to-own-for-2015.html