With the economic downturn, rising unemployment, decline in house prices, and limited ability for consumers to continue using their homes as an ATM; credit card debt is poised to be the next disaster in the financial sector with bearish outlooks for credit lenders Capital One (COF), Discover (DFS), and American Express (AXP). Credit card processors such as Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA) have also declined with the overall market, but are leveraged to the volume of transactions with debit and credit cards rather than
My latest MSN Strategy Lab Journal Update: Lately there has been a generally accepted theory that credit card issuers with exposure to loan losses will have great difficulty in this slowing economy, while card companies that simply earn money from transactions will thrive.
That’s incorrect.
The latter group contains two well-known companies, MasterCard (MA) and Visa (V), [...]<script type="text/javascript">SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Why I am short MasterCard", url: "http://www.thedisciplinedinvestor.com/blog/2008/09/05/why-i-am-short-mastercard/" });</script>
The market saw a major change yesterday. The eight dollar pull back in the price of oil looks to have at least set its price to trade between the $100 and $110 mark. This is only speculation as a new trading pattern has not established itself. If we were to listen to many of the energy experts, as with T. Boone Pickens, the $100 bottom is almost here. With that said, it should stimulate some growth in the US stock market as the dollar should strengthen somewhat and although there is a global slowdown, generally speaking US stocks should see upside going forwa
The current credit crisis and liquidity crunch has made even the professional investors balk on calling a bottom. One stomach churning event after another has proven the most optimistic analysts to not only be wrong, but little more than contrarian indicators.
I want to highlight Mastercard (MA) to show you a chart that represented how stocks used to trade pre quant hedge fund dominance. Today, in most cases, bottoms seem to happen instantly, out of thin air, and in V shapes - so you have no chance to catch the "turn". After a stock gets beaten down for a few weeks, it culminates in a down 8% day, and then the next day it's up 11% and on its way to a run in the other direction. There is no "bottom formed", just a pin point bottom and complete 180 degree change of direction. There is no way to use charts to catch that but that is how trading h...
MasterCard Incorporated (MA) reported earnings on Thursday that beat expectations. The numbers came in with revenues up 25% to $1,246 million for the quarter and pro-forma earnings of $2.11. The earnings number beat the consensus estimates by $0.09 and yet the stock was off more than 10% during the trading session.
When looking deeper into the [...]
Got my wish for some weakness in Mastercard (MA) stock post earnings, so added some this morning in the $240s. I haven't had time to look at the earnings but whatever the fuss is (I am sure it's a "slowdown" of one sort or another) I am ok with for the long term. I am not adding a ton here because this was a gap down in the chart, and there is better support in the $220s, but since we cut this name back sharply from our portfolio I'm willing to begin to layer back in with today's 10%ish haircut. We bought in the mid to low $240s and have taken our stake up from 0.8% to 1.4%.
We don't own Visa (V), but we do have Mastercard (MA) which reports tomorrow. I'll repeat every quarter people do not realize the international opportunities these 2 companies have. Visa was very solid tonight
Visa Inc.'s profit rose a better-than-expected 41 percent in the most recent quarter, as more money changed hands using its credit and debit cards -- particularly outside the United States.
Visa it earned $422 million, or 51 cents a share, for the April-to-June period. That is up from $299 million in the same period a year ago, before the company went public.
I love plastic. I love the convenience, I love the loyality points, I love the security, and I love paying off the balance so it doesn't cost me anything. People forget that MA is not exposed to credit risk; they have a transaction-based model. These guys have a huge market share, the world is moving away from cash, and if you're smart and you're getting rewards from your card and paying off the balance, it's actually cheaper to use plastic than cash. . .it's other people's money for up to 60 days! For people who have less restraint, credit cards offer a way to buy stuff you can't quit
Guru: Bernie Schaeffer Newsletter: Option Advisor BUY: MasterCard (nyse: MA) MasterCard has been a stellar performer. The security has been locked in a steep uptrend since August 2006, gaining roughly 350% in value. What's more, the equity has shrugged off many of the fundamental troubles that have pulled down the financial names this year. In fact, the security has gained 5% since the start of 2008, while the S&P 500 Index (SPX) had lost more than 9%. This technical strength comes as the equity has easily surpassed the earnings expectations of the ...
A lot of earnings gaps are being filled... gaps are a controversional subject in the technical trader world (of which I am loosely associated, although I am more of a fundamentalist) - BUT we have to respect charts and frankly the world looks a lot scarier without them because all you see are stocks in free fall. I went many years without using charts when I first started and looking back now, I don't know how I did it - it seems completely foreign not to look at them at this point. The controversy of gaps comes with the question - do all gaps get filled? No, not all gaps get filled, but...
Serving 25,000 members worldwide in more than 210 countries, Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA) is the second largest payment system, behind Visa (NYSE: V), issuing credit and debit brand cards which provide access to its transactions network. For a fee, of course.
And revenue from those fees and other charges is advancing at a solid pace. In general, analysts expect F2008 revenue to increase a solid 20-25%. Further, while U.S. gross dollar volume increases will slow with the slow-growth U.S. economy in 2008, international GDV growth should remain ro...
5/21 - "...current legislation (could) potentially result in the renegotiation of fees that merchants pay issuing banks, known as the interchange fee. While I’d be far out of line to assess the odds that the bill passes, it’s a worthwhile example to illustrate why American Express is the much better company and – as we’ll see later when looking at valuation – investment."
"Visa and MasterCard...are very much a duopoly in the credit card market, with roughly 80% of the cards in force being one of those two brands. While there are lawsuits by merchants alleging antitrust violations, none hav...
6/2 - "SunTrust is out with a nice call on Mastercard (NYSE:MA) raising their 2008 and 2009 EPS estimates to the Street high...Firm is raising their price target from $350 to $390...New 2008 and 2009 EPS estimates are $8.94 and $12.17, respectively, compared with prior 2008 and 2009 EPS estimates of $8.68 and $11.08.
MasterCard seems ideally positioned to continue capitalizing on the global secular shift to electronic payments. While they believe this is well understood, the power of this growth driver is only now coming into focus as the company enjoys above-trendline volume growth despit...
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Serving 25,000 members worldwide in more than 210 countries, 
