Mastercard stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
August 23rd, 2019
4
Mastercard Incorporated, a technology company, provides transaction processing and other payment-related products and services in the United States and internationally.
Should I buy Mastercard stock?
Trading stocks requires experience and discipline, and your buying and selling decisions must come following a methodology. That's why is so important to choose your own trading plan that fits your character as inversor. At Stocks2.com, we use very simple but trusted and powerful trend following trading strategies. Simple things usually work the best.None of our preferred buy setups matches with Mastercard stock situation right now, hence this is not a suitable entry point.
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | No |
| New 52 week high | No |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is Mastercard stock a buy?
Financial institutions and banks publish stock ratings everyday.
At Stocks2.com, we gathered 15 ratings published for MA stock in the last 30 days. The general sentiment of these ratings is bullish for MA stock, with 13 positive ratings.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-8-5 | Barclays | n/a | Overweight |
| 2019-8-1 | UBS Group | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-7-31 | Raymond James | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-7-31 | Nomura | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-7-31 | Argus | Buy | Average |
| 2019-7-19 | Barclays | n/a | Overweight |
| 2019-7-18 | Raymond James | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-7-11 | Morgan Stanley | n/a | Overweight |
| 2019-7-11 | Deutsche Bank | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-7-10 | Wells Fargo & Co | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-6-17 | Bank of America | n/a | Neutral |
| 2019-6-13 | Wedbush | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-5-6 | Barclays | Overweight | Overweight |
| 2019-5-3 | KeyCorp | n/a | Overweight |
| 2019-5-3 | KeyCorp | n/a | Overweight |
Mastercard stock analysis
Daily outlook
Mastercard shares dropped -3.16% to $271.89 today.
Mastercard shares dropped -3.16% to $271.89 today. From a daily perspective, MA is in a short term uptrend after plotting its last bottom ($265.85, on Aug/14) higher than the previous bottom, and its last top ($282.89, yesterday) also over the previous top. Now trading in between its last bottom and last top MA might consolidate in a plain range, waiting to break out over $282.89 or down under $265.85. On Aug/15 MA price bounced up over the SMA of 50 days demonstrating to be a significant support for this stock. On July/29, MA hit new all time highs, pushing higher previous ATH of $282.29 recorded on July 26th. New ATHs are usual entry points for many trading setups as there aren't higher resistences.
Weekly outlook
Shares of Mastercard depreciated a bad -0.90% this week.
Price pattern shows an uptrend with two rising tops and bottoms, and now trading upwards to the $283.33 resistance. Not so far away is the last price record Mastercard marked late July. Late March, SMA20w and SMA40w crossed up triggering a rise of 18.13%. Since price and SMA40w lines crossed up by mid January, MA climbed $76.50 (39.15%).
Mastercard stock price history
Mastercard stock went public on May 25th, 2006 with a price of $3.771. Since then, MA stock surged a 7,111.90%, with a yearly average of 547.10%. If you had invested right after MA's IPO a $1,000 in Mastercard stock in 2006, it would worth $71,119.00 today.
1: Adjusted price after possible price splits or reverse-splits.
Mastercard stock historical price chart
MA stock reached all-time highs on Jul 29th with a price of $283.33.
Mastercard stock price target is $299.20
How much a stock will be priced tomorrow or next week is quite unpredictable However, banks and other financial institutions analysts, with the help of lots of data and algorithms do their best to predict the stock prices movement. The accuracy of these stock price predictions is not very high, and you should not blindly believe and make decisions only based on what this ratings or price target predictions say. We found 15 price predictions for Mastercard stock published in the last month:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-8-5 | Barclays | Raises Target | $310.00 | $319.00 | 2.9% |
| 2019-8-1 | UBS Group | Raises Target | $300.00 | $312.00 | 4% |
| 2019-7-31 | Raymond James | Raises Target | $300.00 | $308.00 | 2.7% |
| 2019-7-31 | Nomura | Raises Target | $282.00 | $324.00 | 14.9% |
| 2019-7-31 | Argus | Raises Target | n/a | $320.00 | - |
| 2019-7-19 | Barclays | Raises Target | $285.00 | $310.00 | 8.8% |
| 2019-7-18 | Raymond James | Raises Target | $284.00 | $300.00 | 5.6% |
| 2019-7-11 | Morgan Stanley | Raises Target | $269.00 | $291.00 | 8.2% |
| 2019-7-11 | Deutsche Bank | Raises Target | $267.00 | $330.00 | 23.6% |
| 2019-7-10 | Wells Fargo & Co | Reiterates | $285.00 | $305.00 | 7% |
| 2019-6-17 | Bank of America | Reiterates | $255.00 | $267.00 | 4.7% |
| 2019-6-13 | Wedbush | Reiterates | $261.00 | $287.00 | 10% |
| 2019-5-6 | Barclays | Raises Target | $261.00 | $285.00 | 9.2% |
| 2019-5-3 | KeyCorp | Reiterates | $230.00 | $265.00 | 15.2% |
| 2019-5-3 | KeyCorp | Raises Target | $230.00 | $265.00 | 15.2% |
| (in average) | $272.80 | $299.20 | 10.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
Since last April, when Mastercard presented its last earnings report, it escalated an excellent 10.15%. As soon as we get its actual EPS from the earnings report, we will extend this review.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 1.09 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | 2017-10-31 | 1.23 | 1.34 | 8.9% |
| 2017-Q4 | 2018-02-01 | 1.12 | 1.14 | 1.8% |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-05-02 | 1.26 | 1.5 | 19.0% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-07-26 | 1.53 | 1.66 | 8.5% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-10-30 | 1.68 | 1.78 | 6.0% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2019-01-31 | 1.53 | 1.55 | 1.3% |
| 2019-Q1 | 2019-04-30 | 1.67 | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q2 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q3 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Annual financial results
Compared to 2017, last anual sales report draw an extraordinary increase of 19.63% to $14,950.00 million USD. When comparing 2018 vs 2017, in the same way, profit margin (that is, the net income divided by revenues) escalated a 7.86% to 39.19%. To have an updated picture of the financial situation of Mastercard, we have calculated the trailing twelve month (TTM) sales and income figures. TTM values are the sum of the last 4 quarters and aproximate to an annual fiscal report ending in 2019-Q1 that can be compared to 2018 fiscal year results. Annual Mastercard TTM sales up to March 2019 were $15,259.00 and income was $6,229.00 million dollars. If we compare this TTM figures with the last reported annuality, we can review Mastercard business evolution since December 2018: Annual turnover up to March, compared to lastest yearly report, grew a slightly fine 2.07%. In line, profit margin (net income/revenues) raised at 39.19%.| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $8,340 M | - | $3,120 M37.4% | - |
| 2014 | $9,473 M | 13.59% | $3,617 M38.2% | 15.93% |
| 2015 | $9,667 M | 2.05% | $3,808 M39.4% | 5.28% |
| 2016 | $10,776 M | 11.47% | $4,059 M37.7% | 6.59% |
| 2017 | $12,497 M | 15.97% | $3,915 M31.3% | -3.55% |
| 2018 | $14,950 M | 19.63% | $5,859 M39.2% | 49.66% |
| TTM | $15,259 M | 2.07% | $6,229 M40.8% | 6.32% |
Quarterly financial results
Mastercard posted $3,889.00 million in sales for 2019-Q1, a 2.15% improvement compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter income marked $1,862.00 M with a profit margin of 47.88%. Profit margin boosted a 24.26% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 23.61%. When comparing turnover to same quarter last year, Mastercard sales marked a pretty good gain and soared a 8.63%.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $3,050 M | - | $1,180 M38.7% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $3,400 M | 11.48% | $1,430 M42.1% | 21.19% |
| 2017-Q4 | $3,312 M | -2.59% | $227 M6.9% | -84.13% |
| 2018-Q1 | $3,580 M | 8.09% | $1,492 M41.7% | 557.27% |
| 2018-Q2 | $3,665 M | 2.37% | $1,569 M42.8% | 5.16% |
| 2018-Q3 | $3,898 M | 6.36% | $1,899 M48.7% | 21.03% |
| 2018-Q4 | $3,807 M | -2.33% | $899 M23.6% | -52.66% |
| 2019-Q1 | $3,889 M | 2.15% | $1,862 M47.9% | 107.12% |
Mastercard ownership
When you are planning to invest in a company, it's always worth to have a look its ownership structure.Mastercard shares owned by insiders (that is, founders, CEO, CTO, main executives or other management staff) currently counts a 11.17% of all shares.
In case of Mastercard stock, 78.00% of its shares are held by institutions (mutual funds, pension funds, big banks and other large financial institutions). Bearish positions for MA stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
The following table compares ownership indicators for other stocks related to Mastercard:
| MA | AMZN | FIS | T | TMUS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $280.0 B | $888.4 B | $45.7 B | $226.3 B | $64.9 B |
| Total shares | 1,030.0 M | 492.1 M | 331.0 M | 6,500.0 M | 849.0 M |
| Float shares | 996.6 M | 436.0 M | 610.5 M | 7,300.0 M | 312.1 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 78.0% | 57.1% | 92.3% | 55.4% | 35.2% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 11.2% | 16.1% | 0.6% | 0.1% | 63.7% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Mastercard summary
| Friday, August 23rd, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $280.00 |
| Close | $271.89 |
| Day range | $270.22 - $282.09 |
| Previous close | $280.77 |
| Session gain | -3.16% |
| Average true range | $6.78 |
| 50d mov avg | $271.73 |
| 100d mov avg | $259.77 |
| 200d mov avg | $233.55 |
| Daily pattern | lt06a |
| Weekly pattern | lb02a |
Mastercard performance
To better understand Mastercard performance you must compare its gains with other related stocks in same sector or industry. In the following table, we compare Mastercard performance to Amazon.com, Fidelity National Information Services, AT&T, T-Mobile US, Total System Services, Visa, Verizon Communications, WEX and Western Union:| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| MAMastercard | 8.25% | 22.07% | 30.56% |
| AMZNAmazon.com | -0.97% | 10.67% | -5.24% |
| FISFidelity National... | 16.53% | 29.63% | 28.27% |
| TAT&T | 9.53% | 15.30% | 13.49% |
| TMUST-Mobile US | -1.02% | 4.48% | 16.92% |
| TSSTotal System Serv... | 12.46% | 36.22% | 32.62% |
| VVisa | 7.89% | 20.48% | 22.32% |
| VZVerizon Communica... | -4.70% | 0.34% | 6.51% |
| WEX | 1.49% | 13.99% | 6.16% |
| WUWestern Union | 11.53% | 22.45% | 18.38% |
Mastercard competitors
One check before investing in any stock is to have a look a list of its competitors, in this case for Mastercard. We picked 9 companies as Mastercard competitors as they are in the same industry or have similar market objectives.- Amazon.com (AMZN)
- Fidelity National Information Services (FIS)
- AT&T (T)
- T-Mobile US (TMUS)
- Total System Services (TSS)
- Visa (V)
- Verizon Communications (VZ)
- WEX (WEX)
- Western Union (WU)
Latest Mastercard stock news
- Seeking AlphaVisa And Mastercard: 2 Stocks, 1 Superior Business ModelJuly 25, 2019
- Seeking AlphaMasterCard Is Ready To Capitalize On Cashless TrendJuly 19, 2019
- InvestorPlaceBuy Mastercard Stock as It Expands Its ReachJuly 16, 2019
- Seeking AlphaMastercard And Visa: A Side-By-Side ComparisonJune 3, 2019
- Seeking AlphaThere's No Stopping Mastercard's GrowthMay 29, 2019