Where to Invest $10,000 in July: Focus on Payments, Banks, and Microsoft

Elena Nefedova, head of the investment office at Astero Falcon, has selected three stocks that could benefit from competition in the stablecoin market, a revival in capital markets, and the wider adoption of AI. Among her recommendations is Microsoft, which has already weathered several market crashes this year.

Elena Nefedova suggests taking a closer look at Visa. The company’s revenue comes from transaction processing, payment volume, international settlements, and services for banks, businesses, and payment platforms.

In the second fiscal quarter (ended March 31), the company’s revenue totaled $11.2 billion, up 17% year-over-year—the fastest growth rate since 2022. Payment volume grew by 9% on a like-for-like basis (adjusted for inflation), with cross-border volume (excluding Europe) rising by 11%, while the number of transactions processed reached 66.1 billion, an increase of 9%.

Since the beginning of the year, Visa’s stock has risen by less than 0.5%; its forward P/E ratio is 24.15 (compared to 27.17 for its competitor, Mastercard). Of 42 analysts, 39 recommend buying the stock (with “buy” and “overweight” ratings), while three recommend holding. The average target price is $404.37, which implies upside potential of 14.8% from current levels.

In addition to processing payments, Visa has a large B2B business that offers additional services with higher profit margins. It sells technology services to banks and companies. These include, for example, risk management with integrated AI, additional payment acceptance services, and consulting based on its own payment data analytics. This broadens the company’s sources of growth and reduces its reliance solely on transaction volume.

Another area of focus for Visa is working with cryptocurrencies whose value is pegged to a stable asset, such as the dollar. On June 30, the Open Standard consortium—which includes Visa, Mastercard, and Coinbase— announced that it would launch the Open USD stablecoin later this year. On the same day, this news caused the stock price of Circle Internet Group—the issuer of USDC, the second-largest digital currency by trading volume—to plummet by 17.55%.

The company's growth drivers extend beyond a single reporting period. These include the growth of e-commerce, international tourism, the shift from cash to digital payments, and the expansion of business-to-business transactions, Nefedova continues.

There is another factor supporting earnings per share. In the second fiscal quarter, Visa repurchased its own shares for a record $7.9 billion, and under this plan, it intends to repurchase an additional $13.2 billion worth of shares. In addition, in April, its board of directors approved a new multi-year buyback plan worth $20 billion.

“For a business with predictable cash flow and no direct credit risk, this buyback pace supports earnings per share even with moderate revenue growth,” says Elena Nefedova.

Another company on Astero Falcon’s “July list” is JPMorgan. Just as Visa’s business extends beyond card transactions, this bank’s business goes beyond traditional lending, says Elena Nefedova. In addition to deposits and loans, it generates revenue from equity and bond offerings, transaction advisory services, trading, payments, and asset management.

JPMorgan securities will help add $10,000 in exposure to the banking sector and capital markets to the portfolio.

In 2025, JPMorgan earned $9.6 billion in market commissions as trading and capital markets activity on Wall Street picked up. This was largely driven by growing interest in AI, as reported by Forbes in late June of this year. For the fourth consecutive year, the bank has held the top spot in the Forbes Global 2000 ranking of the world’s largest public companies. In addition, JPMorgan remains the world’s largest investment bank by commission revenue for the 17th consecutive year, Forbes reported.

In the first quarter of 2026, JPMorgan’s adjusted (managed) revenue rose 10% year-over-year to $50.5 billion, while net income increased 13% to $16.5 billion. Revenue from market operations increased by 20%, investment banking fees by 28%, and assets under management reached $4.8 trillion (up 16% year-over-year).

JPMorgan's stock has risen 5.3% since the start of the year, and its forward P/E ratio for 2026 is 15.2, which is roughly equal to the corresponding multiple for the U.S. financial sector (15.6).

The consensusrecommendation for JPMorgan shares is “Outperform,” which is equivalent to a buy recommendation. The average price target is $355.36, which implies potential upside of approximately 4.8% from the July 7 closing price.

“This assessment reflects the cyclical nature of the banking sector, its sensitivity to interest rates and credit quality, but also highlights the importance of fee-based business lines,” says Elena Nefedova.

The next catalyst for JPMorgan shares is its second-quarter earnings report, which will be released on July 14.

The second driver is asset management; this area generates a steady inflow of client funds and predictable fee income that is not dependent on interest rates, thereby smoothing out cyclical fluctuations.

Third, diversification: the bank earns revenue not only from lending, but also from market volatility, payments, and fees.

At the same time, JPMorgan’s balance sheet remains sensitive to interest rate levels and monetary policy tightening: a 100-basis-point increase in rates boosts net interest income by approximately $1.8–1.9 billion, while a 100-basis-point decrease reduces it by approximately $2.2 billion. In other words, the bank’s interest-rate business as a whole benefits from higher interest rates.

At the same time, the impact of interest rates on fee income from capital markets is less clear-cut.

Lower financing costs typically support activity in the M&A and IPO markets; however, interest rate hikes driven by a strong economy do not necessarily hinder deals. In such an environment, strategic acquisitions and offerings can continue even with more expensive debt, Nefedova explains. As a result, the Fed’s tighter policy should not automatically be viewed as a negative factor for JPMorgan’s fee-based business. The key factors are the reason for the rate changes and the state of the economy as a whole.

Tech giant Microsoft is featured in the "Where to Invest $10,000" section for the first time.

In late January, the company fell victim to a “software apocalypse” and weathered a sell-off in June, losing more than 17% of its market capitalization in a single month. As a result, its stock has fallen 20% since the beginning of the year.

But Elena Nefedova believes this company is worth paying attention to because it has strong growth drivers. Even Michael Burry, a well-known AI skeptic, believes its stock is undervalued. On June 26, he wrote on his Substack that he had bought call options on Microsoft with an expiration date of December 15, 2028: this position will be profitable if the stock price reaches $700 or higher.

The company integrates AI into its existing ecosystem of cloud services, software, developer tools, and cybersecurity solutions, and its main revenue streams are Azure, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, GitHub, and Copilot, as Elena Nefedova points out.

In the third quarter of fiscal year 2026 (ended March 31), Microsoft’s revenue rose 18% year-over-year to $82.9 billion, while operating income rose 20% to $38.4 billion. Microsoft Cloud revenue increased by 29% to $54.5 billion. Revenue from Azure and other cloud services grew by 40%. The annual revenue for the AI business segment exceeded $37 billion, representing a 123% increase year over year.

The company’s forward P/E ratio currently stands at 19.9 —by the end of June, it had fallen to a three-year low. But despite the decline, this metric, like the company’s market capitalization, “reflects the market’s premium for the sustainable growth of the cloud business and AI, high profitability, and the predictability of contracted revenue,” says Nefedova.

“But at the same time, they set the bar high: the stock is sensitive to any slowdown in Azure’s performance or any squeeze on cloud margins,” she warns.

The second driver for the company is the transition of AI products from pilot projects and development to regular use in the corporate sector. The number of Microsoft 365 Copilot subscriptions has exceeded 20 million, and the rate of new sign-ups has grown by 250% year-over-year. Compared to the company’s total number of paid users—more than 450 million —this is a small figure (meaning AI penetration is just over 4%), but it also means that Microsoft has room for growth in this area.

It is worth noting the portfolio of remaining performance obligations. It grew by 99%, to $627 billion, at the end of the most recent reporting quarter. This means that a significant portion of future revenue is already locked in through contracts, primarily in the cloud business, explains Nefedova.

The next catalyst for the company’s stock will be its quarterly earnings report, which is scheduled to be released on July 29. For the fourth fiscal quarter, Microsoft forecasts revenue in the range of $86.7–87.8 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 13–15 percent; The company has already stated that growth in its enterprise business will be partially offset by weaker results in the consumer segment. Microsoft expects Azure’s revenue growth to be 39–40%.

However, it is not only the growth rate itself that will be important to the market, but also how it relates to infrastructure spending. The growth of Azure and other AI services requires a large-scale expansion of data centers and computing capacity.

In the most recent quarter, the Intelligent Cloud segment's cost of sales rose by 47%, while Microsoft Cloud's gross margin declined from 68% at the end of the first fiscal quarter to 66%.

Future trends will depend on whether growing revenue from Azure and AI products can cover additional infrastructure costs and sustain the profitability of the cloud business, Nefedova concludes.

The consensus recommendation for Microsoft stock is “Buy,” with an average price target of $557.8. This implies upside potential of more than 40% from current levels.

This is not an investment recommendation.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor