MasterCard (MA) Stock Sinks As Market Gains: What You Should Know
MasterCard (MA) closed the most recent trading day at $334.44, moving -0.14% from the previous trading session. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.03%. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.04%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.55%.
Coming into today, shares of the processor of debit and credit card payments had gained 1.73% in the past month. In that same time, the Business Services sector lost 0.83%, while the S&P 500 gained 3.99%.
Wall Street will be looking for positivity from MA as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be January 28, 2021. On that day, MA is projected to report earnings of $1.53 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 21.94%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $4.02 billion, down 9.03% from the year-ago period.
Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for MA. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.
Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. 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.
The Zacks Rank system, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has an impressive outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks generating an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.16% higher. MA currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
Looking at its valuation, MA is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 41.12. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 23.83, 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 2.46. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. MA's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.18 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 133, putting it in the bottom 48% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our 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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