New York, Feb 26, 2026, 15:59 (EST) — Regular session
- Visa rose roughly 1% in late-afternoon trading. Wall Street, meanwhile, sagged on worries over tech valuations.
- Visa landed the top spot in a new Evident AI index tracking major payments firms. Mastercard and PayPal followed closely.
- Attention shifts to Friday’s U.S. producer price numbers, while traders also mark Visa’s upcoming quarterly report on their calendars.
Visa (V) climbed 1.1% to $316.53 by 3:29 p.m. EST Thursday. The stock’s session range landed between $313.94 and $319.42. Over the last 52 weeks, Visa has traded from $299.00 to $375.51, according to Google Finance.
The move came even as the broader market slipped. The Dow dropped 0.41%, the S&P 500 lost 1%, and the Nasdaq slid 1.7%, with investors wary of “lofty valuations” in the AI space. Nvidia’s strong results did little to calm nerves, according to Reuters. Reuters
Visa shares took a roughly 4.5% tumble Tuesday, according to City AM, after a downbeat research note stoked worries that AI-driven layoffs could push unemployment higher. That’s bad news for the consumer-spending picture that typically props up card usage.
Shares in the payments group caught another lift from the ongoing AI discussion. Visa landed the top spot for AI maturity among a dozen global payments firms, according to tracking firm Evident, as reported by Business Insider. “Leaders cannot afford to drop off the pace,” Evident co-founder Alexandra Mousavizadeh told the outlet. Visa’s chief data officer, Andres Vives, pointed to over $3.5 billion in AI and data investment in the last ten years, with more than 300 AI models now running in production. Business Insider
Visa pulled ahead in the index by shifting from standalone AI pilots to embedding the technology throughout its operations, according to Computer Weekly. Mousavizadeh pointed out that Visa’s “impact at scale over multiple years” demonstrates how AI is taking hold across both its business and network, the publication noted. Computer Weekly
PayPal took third place in the payments index and echoed the industry’s growing focus on what it described as the “era of agentic commerce”—AI that actually carries out transactions and tasks for users. CTO Srini Venkatesan put it this way: as commerce shifts toward more “intelligent and agentic” systems, PayPal is working on the infrastructure needed for “trusted AI-driven experiences.” PayPal Newsroom
Still, Thursday’s bump isn’t the final word. With Visa trading at a high multiple, there’s not much cushion if economic growth slows. As for the AI spending spree, it could easily sour if those investments don’t actually deliver clearer efficiency or improved loss performance.
Looking ahead, Friday brings the U.S. producer price index (PPI), a key read on wholesale inflation that could sway rate bets. Estimates from Investing.com’s calendar put both headline and core PPI up 0.3% for January.
Visa’s next shot at moving the needle comes with its upcoming quarterly earnings. According to Public.com, investors should mark April 28 for the company’s results and conference call.
