It wasn’t a big surprise that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell cut interest rates at the Fed’s September meeting on Wednesday. In July, he implied in no uncertain terms that a rate cut was coming, and the likelihood was that it was going be a quarter of a point. That’s what has happened. The governing body also signaled that two more cuts would come at its next two meetings, in October and December.

Powell noted that there are mixed signals in the economy, which made it a difficult decision. Normally, the Fed keeps rates high until inflation backs down, and right now, inflation is higher than the Fed wants it to be. Nonetheless, the once-strong job market is beginning to falter, and a reduction in interest rates should stimulate the economy and employment opportunities.

A more active economy with more jobs and money flowing is great news for most businesses, and some companies will feel the change more acutely. Visa (V 1.19%), SoFi Technologies (SOFI 4.96%), and Carnival (CCL -2.96%) (CUK -2.67%), are three stocks that should benefit in a big way.

1. Visa: The best indicator of spending habits

Visa is the largest credit card company in the world, and its performance tells the story of the economy to some degree. Because it’s a credit card network, its processed volume is a strong indication of how people are spending. And because it targets a wide range of demographics, its message is fairly universal.

The purpose of cutting interest rates is to boost the economy, and Visa is a major beneficiary of higher spending. Visa’s core business is providing the network, or infrastructure, that moves money from a customer’s partnering bank to a merchant, taking a small cut of each transaction. Although it has branched out to other services, they mostly center around different ways of moving money. More money flowing means more money for Visa.

It has been performing well despite the higher interest rates. In the 2025 fiscal third quarter (ended June 30), revenue increased 14% year over year, and payments volume was up 8%. It’s highly profitable, since it has a simple, low-cost model, and net income increased 8% over last year in the quarter.

Lower interest rates should further boost Visa’s earnings, benefiting this Warren Buffett-backed stock. Visa is a solid long-term investment, offering value to most portfolios.

2. SoFi: A young bank disruptor

Banks have a two-sided relationship with interest rates. They make more money on net interest income when rates are higher, but they also suffer from higher default rates because consumers struggle to pay back loans. They also take out loans at lower rates for that reason, and altogether, banks usually do better with lower rates.

That goes for the industry as a whole, but I’m picking SoFi in particular partly because of its large lending segment, and partly because it’s growing much faster than almost any other bank, which means it stands to gain a lot from an improving economy.

SoFi is a neobank, a cadre of digital banks that have no physical branches and offer a modern take on financial management. In addition to student, personal, and home loans, it offers a broad array of standard banking services and typically beats out national averages on savings rates for deposits.

It also offers non-standard services like cryptocurrency trading on its app, and it recently said it would offer international money transfers on a Blockchain network. That could offer real value, since sending money internationally is often a complicated, expensive, and long process.

SoFi’s lending segment struggled last year when interest rates were at a high, and it has already benefited from lower rates with accelerated revenue growth and better credit metrics. Even lower rates should help all of its segments, which, aside from lending, include financial services, like bank accounts and investing, and tech platform, which is a business-to-business financial infrastructure.

As it becomes a larger and more formidable player in finance, it should be able to weather future uncertainty even better.

3. Carnival: Great performance, high debt

Carnival is sailing through smooth seas as customers continue to sign up for its cruises. Demand is at historical highs, operating income is at a record, and the company is ordering new ships and launching new destinations to meet all of this demand.

There’s only one kink in the business: it has massive debt. It’s been paying it off responsibly, but it’s still more than $27 billion. This year, it has refinanced $7 billion at better rates, saving millions on interest. It will now be able to refinance more of its debt at lower rates.

Outside of the debt, the investment thesis for Carnival is strong. It’s the largest global cruise operator, and demand has stayed healthy despite high inflation. That’s resiliency.

Carnival stock is still cheap today due to the concerns about the debt, but as it pays it down and becomes more profitable, expect the stock to keep climbing.

Warren Buffett will step down from his role as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year. Although his legendary decade-long tenure is coming to an end, investors can still learn a great deal by studying the man’s investing philosophy and examining the conglomerate’s famous portfolio, which contains many excellent buy-and-hold options.

Two of the top picks among Berkshire Hathaway’s 41 holdings are Amazon (AMZN 0.23%) and Visa (V 1.19%). These market leaders have the potential to deliver superior returns over the next decade.

Here is why.

1. Amazon

Amazon is a highly profitable company with U.S. and international operations in e-commerce, grocery shopping, video and music streaming, advertising, and cloud computing. However, outside of its cloud operations, the company’s business is relatively low-margin.

In the second quarter, Amazon’s North America and international segments had operating margins of 7.5% and 4.1%, respectively. Here’s the good news: In the next decade, e-commerce should continue expanding internationally, granting significant growth prospects to these parts of Amazon’s business.

In the meantime, the company will seek to improve its margins by implementing artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives across its operations. The company has deployed more than a million industrial robots in its warehouses to that end. Amazon’s North America and international segments generate hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue. Even modest margin improvements annually over the long run could have a meaningful impact on the company’s bottom line.

Then there is Amazon’s fast-growing cloud unit. It is responsible for most of the company’s operating and net income, thanks to its much juicier margins. With a suite of AI services whose demand continues to grow, Amazon Web Services should maintain this momentum for the foreseeable future. Lastly, some of Amazon’s newer initiatives are expected to make a meaningful impact in the next decade as well.

Consider the company’s Amazon Pharmacy. The U.S. prescription drug market is expected to be worth approximately $374 billion in revenue this year. Amazon boasts 180 million Prime members in the U.S. and offers a range of perks, including fast and free shipping, allowing patients to avoid the long lines at pharmacies. If the company can scale this business and the rest of its healthcare operations, it could have a meaningful impact on its results by 2035.

Even without that, though, Amazon’s prospects for the next decade look highly attractive. Investors can safely add shares of the e-commerce specialist and hold onto them for a long time.

2. Visa

Visa owns one of the world’s leading global payment networks. The company facilitates credit and debit card transactions, earning a fee for each. So, every time anyone swipes or taps a card branded with Visa’s logo, the company pockets a percentage of the transaction amount. That’s quite the business model.

To get an idea of the scale of Visa’s business, consider that there are about 5 billion of its branded cards in circulation across some 200 countries, and the company supports hundreds of billions of transactions annually and trillions in total payment volume.

The result: Visa generates consistent revenue and profits, and it has for the past decade. The company also boasts a high-margin business. Visa’s network infrastructure is already in place and can support its transaction volume with minimal additional cost.

The financial specialist also avoids the headaches associated with credit risk, as it does not issue the credit card itself. This also means it doesn’t receive money from interest. Still, Visa’s fee-based, capital-light model yields gross and net margins of around 80% and 50%, respectively, which is exceptional for a company of its size.

Although Visa has already achieved tremendous success, there is still plenty of room to grow, as the world increasingly requires digital (non-cash or check) methods of payment. Besides the fact that cash is clunky and less convenient to carry in high amounts than a credit card, the growth of e-commerce is also playing a role in this, since cash is an option in physical retail stores, but digital methods of payment are practically mandatory on e-commerce platforms.

Visa still estimates there’s trillions worth of cash and check transactions to bring into its ecosystem. The company should ride that wave in the next decade and deliver excellent returns along the way.

Prosper Junior Bakiny has positions in Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and Visa. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.