• This weekend's Barron's cover story offers ways to profit from the digital-payment future.

• Other featured articles discuss how to invest in the post-COVID world, where to look overseas for bargains, and how Bill Ackman is positioned now.

• Also, the prospects for a supermarket operator, a semiconductor maker, top bank stocks and more.

Cover story Covid Is Making Cash History. How to Profit From the Digital-Payment Future." by Daren Fonda suggests that consumers are running away from physical payments and may never go back. See what that means for Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: PYPL) and others.

Andrew Bary's "Why Albertsons Is a Buy: More Meals at Home and the Stock Is Cheap" points out that with Americans eating more meals at home, and with its dynamic CEO, Albertsons Companies Inc (NYSE: ACI) now has potential.

In "Hunting for Stock Market Bargains? It's Time to Head to Europe and Japan," Reshma Kapadia shows why European and Japanese stocks could offer better bets now on a global economic recovery. Ferrari NV (NYSE: RACE) and other companies to watch.

This hedge fund billionaire's Covid-19 bet paid off big-time, according to "The Greatest Trade of All Time—and What Bill Ackman Is Investing in Now" by William D. Cohan. See how he's positioned now. Does he still favor Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX)?

In Karen Hube's "How to Invest for a Post-Covid World," see what top advisors, money managers and asset-allocation experts recommend now that the investing landscape has found a profoundly different new normal. See how Madison Square Garden Entertainment (NYSE: MSGE) fits in.

See also: Why Trump's TikTok Ban Could Be 'Fort Sumter Moment' In Cold Tech War Between US, China

"Big Tech Weighs Too Heavily? Feast on These Stocks Instead." by Jack Hough makes a case for rotating to ServiceNow Inc. (NYSE: NOW), Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: VRTX) and several others.

NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) could eventually become the most important chip maker in the world. So says Max A. Cherney's "Nvidia's Deal for Arm Is Risky—and Quite Smart." What did the niche player get for its $40 billion?

In "Don't Count Banks Out Just Yet. For One Thing, They're Cheap.," Carleton English discusses whether the risk of not owning U.S. bank stocks such as Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) is greater than owning them.

Also in this week's Barron's:

 

• Potential negative consequences of lower-for-longer interest rates

• Fiscal policy and the rally in tech stocks

• The impact of the pandemic on the Latino success story

• Whether the almighty consumer will stumble in the coming year

• A look at Saudi Arabia's $360 billion sovereign-wealth fund

• Exchange-traded funds to own as spending picks up