This is an interesting time to be an investor, for more reasons than one. It is certainly frustrating as the markets bounce around and there is much uncertainty in the economy that could hurt many stocks. On the other hand, the bear market of 2022 created some great buying opportunities, as a lot of good companies saw their share prices plummet.

One stock that stands out to me right now is Visa (V 0.16%), the credit card payments giant. If I could only buy one stock right now, this would be it.

Some huge advantages for Visa

There are many reasons to like Visa, particularly now, and they stem from its business model and market dominance. Visa is one of two major credit and payment processors, along with Mastercard, which gives it a powerful competitive advantage. While there are other credit processing companies, like American Express and Discover Financial, they are smaller and have different business models.

American Express and Discover have closed loop models, where they are both the lender and payment processor. Although they each get the benefit of interest income on their loans, they also have credit risk, which is more of an issue now, as delinquencies rise during an economic slowdown. Visa, and Mastercard don't issue credit cards, they simply provide the network on which the payments are made. And they basically own those networks, because American Express and Discover have their own networks. So that's how they have a duopoly -- and a wide competitive moat.

Now Visa is largest, by a sizable margin. Roughly 53% of the total purchase volume is through Visa, while 24% is through Mastercard and about 20% through American Express. Overall, Visa has about 50% of all credit cards in circulation.

So that's the network. The business model is also a huge advantage for Visa because it is so simple and efficient. As I mentioned, Visa does not issue credit cards, so it has no credit risk. It makes most of its revenue from swipe fees collected whenever the card is used to buy something. With relatively little overhead, Visa generates huge margins through its vast network.

Visa has an operating margin of 67%, which means it keeps two-thirds of every dollar of revenue after production costs. That is extremely high, as most companies consider a 15% to 20% operating margin to be good. It also has a high return on equity (ROE) of 41.5%, which measures how efficiently a company uses shareholder equity to generate profit. This is roughly twice as high as the average ROE on the S&P 500.

This allows Visa to generate tons of cash flow. With about $15 billion in free cash flow, it can constantly reinvest in its systems and operations.

A history of outperformance

What really stands out about Visa is its ability to perform well in just about any market cycle. That has to do with the above-mentioned advantages -- but also the continuing trend toward cashless payments. World economies are increasingly going cashless, and this is a trend that is only going to accelerate over the years. The biggest risk for Visa is an economic slowdown, but because of its market dominance and the growth in remote payments it is able to navigate downturns better than most.

Last year, for example, a time of high inflation and a slowing economy, Visa was able to beat the market, falling only 3%, while the S&P 500 declined 19% and the Nasdaq Composite index plunged more than 30%.

And Visa's numbers over time are stellar, with the company posting an average annual return of 19% during the past 10 years. But what really makes Visa a good buy right now is its valuation. Its forward price-to-earnings ratio has dropped to 27, which is down from 31 a year ago, and is well within its historical range.

These are uncertain times, but Visa has been about as steady a growth stock as you can find.