Circle (CRCL)

Financials

Abacus Research

The Genius Act has changed America’s relationship with crypto, making it the most attractive country in the world for stablecoins. Abacus’ latest report notes that while the pace of adoption is still unclear, long-term disruption of financial incumbents appears inevitable. CRCL’s model is attractive if USDC can scale, though Abacus estimates ~10x growth is needed to deliver a reasonable IRR - a challenging hurdle. Blockchains are expected to replace legacy infrastructure, with SWIFT the first casualty. Visa and Mastercard face limited near-term risk, but crypto is the primary long-term threat to their duopoly. Stablecoins have the potential to reach >$2trn m/cap in the next few years vs. $260bn today. Abacus sees CRCL as a compelling risk/reward play, with upside potential of 195% outweighing downside risk of 50%.

- 22 August, 2025

Ranking the winners and losers in Global Payments

Technology

Galliano's Financials Research

Victor Galliano introduces a proprietary payments scorecard, ranking companies based on weighted metrics including valuation, margins, EBITDA growth and valuation-to-growth. PagSeguro and Nexi remain top picks due to deep value characteristics and strong scorecard rankings. PayPal is upgraded to Buy, replacing Visa, supported by improved margins, stabilising net take rate and attractive valuation. Affirm is upgraded to Neutral, while KakaoPay is newly rated Sell. The stock has surged on stablecoin speculation, but Victor warns of underestimated regulatory risks, especially following Bank of Korea’s recent caution on digital assets.

- 11 July, 2025

Which stocks >$100bn m/cap are buys now?

Trivariate Research

With investors searching for value in the current market sell-off and likely looking to buy names among the safer, larger cap universe, Trivariate has assessed the performance of several metrics within the stocks >$100bn m/cap to see if they could systematically pick winners from losers. The best performing signal over the last 10 years, was buying the companies in the top third of forecasted revenue growth, while the second best was buying the one-third of companies with the lowest short interest. The worst performing signals were those in the highest third of leverage and stock volatility (distance-to-default) and those with the worst third of downward earnings revisions. Current long ideas from Trivariate’s $100bn Club Framework include all the Mag 7 (except Tesla), as well as Eli Lilly, Visa and UnitedHealth. Shorts include Goldman Sachs, PepsiCo, Caterpillar and Starbucks.

- 21 March, 2025

Visa (V)

Technology

Valens Research

As the world relentlessly shifts towards cashless payments, giants in payment processing such as Visa are central to this revolution. Despite initial lagging behind its rival, Mastercard, in developing high-profitability partnerships aimed at digital and e-commerce solutions, Visa is now mirroring its competitor's strategy. It's concentrating on expansion into digital solutions and pouring significant investments into partnerships. These efforts are now positioned to start reaping benefits for the company.

- 09 June, 2023