MasterCard (MA) ended the recent trading session at $571.93, demonstrating a +1.52% change from the preceding day's closing price. The stock exceeded the S&P 500, which registered a loss of 1.07% for the day. Elsewhere, the Dow saw a downswing of 0.51%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq depreciated by 1.69%.
Shares of the processor of debit and credit card payments have appreciated by 1.4% over the course of the past month, underperforming the Business Services sector's gain of 2.99%, and outperforming the S&P 500's gain of 0.94%.
Market participants will be closely following the financial results of MasterCard in its upcoming release. In that report, analysts expect MasterCard to post earnings of $4.21 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 10.21%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $8.74 billion, up 16.73% from the year-ago period.
Regarding the entire year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates forecast earnings of $16.43 per share and revenue of $32.63 billion, indicating changes of +12.53% and +15.84%, respectively, compared to the previous year.
Additionally, investors should keep an eye on any recent revisions to analyst forecasts for MasterCard. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the business and profitability.
Our research suggests that these changes in estimates have a direct relationship with upcoming stock price performance. 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.
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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.1% higher. MasterCard presently features a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
With respect to valuation, MasterCard is currently being traded at a Forward P/E ratio of 34.28. This denotes a premium relative to the industry average Forward P/E of 14.87.
We can additionally observe that MA currently boasts a PEG ratio of 2.21. 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. The Financial Transaction Services industry had an average PEG ratio of 1.06 as trading concluded yesterday.
The Financial Transaction Services industry is part of the Business Services sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 171, putting it in the bottom 31% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank evaluates the power of our distinct industry groups by determining the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks forming 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 use Zacks.com to monitor all these stock-influencing metrics, and more, throughout the forthcoming trading sessions.
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Mastercard Incorporated (MA): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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