MasterCard (MA) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

MasterCard (MA Free Report) closed at $322.11 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.6% move from the prior day. This change outpaced the S&P 500’s 0.85% loss on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.17%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.05%.

Heading into today, shares of the processor of debit and credit card payments had lost 4.54% over the past month, outpacing the Business Services sector’s loss of 5.55% and lagging the S&P 500’s loss of 0.97% in that time.

MasterCard will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. On that day, MasterCard is projected to report earnings of $2.20 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 34.15%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $5.16 billion, up 25.22% from the year-ago period.

MA’s full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $8.26 per share and revenue of $18.82 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +28.46% and +23.02%, respectively.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for MasterCard. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company’s business and profitability.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. MasterCard is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Investors should also note MasterCard’s current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 38.76. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 20.38, so we one might conclude that MasterCard is trading at a premium comparatively.

It is also worth noting that MA currently has a PEG ratio of 1.86. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company’s expected earnings growth rate into account. MA’s industry had an average PEG ratio of 0.99 as of yesterday’s close.

The Financial Transaction Services industry is part of the Business Services sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 172, putting it in the bottom 33% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.

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