Akre Capital Management , an investment management company, published the "Akre Focus ETF" third-quarter 2026 investor letter. The letter can be downloaded here . The Akre Focus ETF fell 0.84% in Q3 2026, versus a 2.30% gain for the S&P 500, as September's 14.38% decline erased strong July and August returns. The fund's trailing 12-month return was −21.80%, compared with +15.74% for the index. Akre argues that its holdings remain financially strong—projecting mid-teens free-cash-flow growth, over 43% ROIC, and lower leverage than the S&P 500—despite historically low valuations. The fund remains confident in major holdings such as Mastercard, Visa, Constellation Software, Brookfield, KKR, and Moody's, while acknowledging challenges at LVMH, Copart, FICO, CoStar, and others. Additionally, reviewing the Strategy's top five holdings provides insight into its best positions for 2026.
In its Q3 2026 investor letter, Akre Focus Fund highlighted Visa Inc. (NYSE: V ). Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) is a multinational financial services company known for its payment technology network that offers credit, debit, and prepaid card products and other services. On October 23, 2026, Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) closed at $407.92 per share, reflecting a market capitalization of $761.61 billion. Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) posted a one‑month return of 9.80%, while its shares gained 16.08% over the past 52 weeks.
Akre Focus Fund stated the following regarding Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) in its Q3 2026 investor letter:
"Mastercard and Visa Inc.(NYSE:V): Mastercard and Visa continue to direct more "traffic" and create more value at the most critical and fastest growing intersections in global commerce. AI-powered agentic commerce creates new risks and opportunities requiring the orchestration of these dominant networks (as will quantum computing, eventually). These companies sit at the nexus of some of the world's most critical infrastructure. The importance of maintaining that infrastructure's safety and functionality is only growing. Meanwhile, the strength of Visa and Mastercard's networks argue for potential competitors to partner with them rather than compete with them. The companies continue to innovate and plant seeds for long term success. For example, tokenization technology keeps live payment credentials protected and uses unique "tokenized" credentials to complete transactions. More than 50% of global e-commerce transactions are now tokenized, resulting in a 39% reduction in fraud and 5% uplift in authorization rates. Visa and Mastercard have only started monetizing this technology a decade after introduction."
Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) ranks 9 on our list of 40 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds Heading Into 2026 . As per our database, 194 hedge fund portfolios held Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) at the end of the second quarter, which was 181 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock .
In another article , we discussed Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) and shared Jenga Investment Partners' views on the company. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q3 2026 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.
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This article is originally published at Insider Monkey .
