MasterCard (MA) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know
MasterCard (MA) closed the most recent trading day at $343.37, moving +1.54% from the previous trading session. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.53%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 0.13%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 1.42%.
Heading into today, shares of the processor of debit and credit card payments had lost 6.25% over the past month, lagging the Business Services sector's loss of 3.33% and the S&P 500's loss of 3.76% in that time.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from MA as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect MA to post earnings of $1.15 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 46.51%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $3.93 billion, down 11.99% from the year-ago period.
For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $6.62 per share and revenue of $15.58 billion, which would represent changes of -14.8% and -7.72%, respectively, from the prior year.
Any recent changes to analyst estimates for MA should also be noted by investors. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-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. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an actionable rating system.
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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.91% higher. MA is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Valuation is also important, so investors should note that MA has a Forward P/E ratio of 51.06 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 26.03, so we one might conclude that MA is trading at a premium comparatively.
It is also worth noting that MA currently has a PEG ratio of 2.82. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. MA's industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.5 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 76, putting it in the top 31% 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.
You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.
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Mastercard Incorporated (MA) : Free Stock Analysis Report
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