Visa posts
FeedPosted Nov 4th 2009 8:20AM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, American Express (AXP), MasterCard Inc'A' (MA), Visa Inc. (V)
I've said on many occasions that I prefer MasterCard (NYSE: MA) to Visa (NYSE: V). No, I don't mean the card products themselves. I mean the stocks. I believe Visa has better brand equity associated with it, and I think it possesses a little more depth and fundamental prowess. However, both of these companies operate on the same basic economic model: collect fees on transactions, and don't take on loan risk. So, both MasterCard and Visa do offer compelling long-term investment theses.
And, even though there were some negative outlooks on MasterCard's latest earnings report, which was released Tuesday, I have to say that I didn't find the situation too disturbing. Revenues increased only 2%. The top line was inhibited by currency effects, but it's not like we haven't heard that story before. More importantly, MasterCard posted adjusted income of $3.48 per share, representative of a 40% increase over the adjusted income recorded a year ago.
Continue reading Was MasterCard's Q3 good or bad?
Posted Oct 31st 2009 4:10PM by Trey Thoelcke (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Allergan (AGN), Aetna Inc (AET), TD AmeriTrade Holding (AMTD), RadioShack Corp (RSH), Goodyear Tire and Rubber (GT), E*TRADE (ETFC), Visa Inc. (V)
Continue reading Earnings highlights: Aetna, Allergan, E*Trade, Goodyear, RadioShack, SAP, Visa ...
Posted Oct 25th 2009 10:20AM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, McDonald's (MCD), New York Times'A' (NYT), American Express (AXP), Merck and Co (MRK), EMC Corp (EMC), Union Pacific Corporation (UNP), Raytheon Company (RTN), Visa Inc. (V)
A lot of earnings reports were issued last week. The market was busy sorting them all out. I'm going to take a fast look at several of the issuing companies.
American Express (NYSE: AXP): Don't leave home without it. Good advice for the card, perhaps, but what about the company? Should your portfolio leave home and forget this stock? I'd say so. It's not that American Express lost the earnings game. On the contrary, Bloomberg reported a beat. American Express earned 44 cents per share from continuing operations, adjusted. This was six pennies ahead of forecasts. Okay, I applaud such performance. And shares are way off the single-digit 52-week low. Thing is, I'm in love with another card business. Visa (NYSE: V). As I've stated before, I enjoy the beauty of Visa's lower-risk model. It doesn't have to put up with loan risk. Yes, the situation at American Express might be improving, but I'm not going to buy this one.
Continue reading Quick opinions on some quarterly earnings: AXP, MRK, MCD, NYT, UP ...
Posted Sep 17th 2009 3:00PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, American Express (AXP), MasterCard Inc'A' (MA), Visa Inc. (V)
Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS), a credit card company that competes with Visa (NYSE: V), MasterCard (NYSE: MA), and American Express (NYSE: AXP), released earnings for the third quarter on Thursday. The company put analysts to shame by posting a profit instead of a loss according to an article from Reuters.
The projection was for a loss of 12 cents per share. Discover actually made 52 cents per share of profit, once you exclude monies received from an antitrust settlement. Wow, that's what you call being way off the mark! The disparity surprised me, so I went to our very own earnings preview to see what we were reporting for an estimate. Sure enough, it stated the exact same expectation for a loss of 12 cents.
Continue reading Discover surprises analysts in Q3
Posted Aug 25th 2009 11:20AM by Eric Buscemi (RSS feed)
Filed under: Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Google (GOOG), Time Warner (TWX), Analyst initiations
Analyst upgrades:
- Jefferies upgraded Warner Chilcott (NASDAQ: WCRX) to Buy from Hold. The firm views Warner Chilcott's acquisition of P&G's (NYSE: PG) pharma business as a positive given its attractive product fit and purchase price.
- ThinkEquity upgraded Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) to Buy from Source of Funds and raised its target to $550 from $400. Previously, the firm thought Google Street estimates were too high and that low single-digit growth in Q2 and Q3 would cause multiple contraction. They said their thesis played out fundamentally but they were wrong on the stock. Given Q2 has past, the analyst raised estimates above consensus and expects an in-line Q3 and for shares to outperform as the economic cycle turns.
- Bernstein upgraded Diageo (NYSE: DEO) to Outperform from Market Perform and views Diageo's valuation as attractive. The firm expects 2H09 results on August 27 to mark a bottom in weakening top-line trends.
- Costco (NASDAQ: COST) was upgraded to Market Perform from Underperform at William Blair.
- Lowe's (NYSE: LOW) was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley.
- Siemens (NYSE: SI) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill.
Continue reading Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: CHIC, COST, GOOG, LOW, TWX, V ...
Posted Aug 1st 2009 3:40PM by Trey Thoelcke (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, Coach Inc (COH), Corning Inc (GLW), Alcatel-LucentADS (ALU), Valero Energy (VLO), Level 3 Communications (LVLT), Goodyear Tire and Rubber (GT), Taser Intl Inc (TASR), Visa Inc. (V), Waste Management Inc. (WMI)
Continue reading Earnings highlights: Coach, Corning, Goodyear, Visa, Waste Management ...
Posted Jul 24th 2009 6:00PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, American Express (AXP), MasterCard Inc'A' (MA), Visa Inc. (V)
American Express Company (NYSE: AXP), a company that competes with Visa Inc. (NYSE: V), MasterCard Incorporated (NYSE: MA), and Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS), issued Q2 results earlier in the week. Earnings from continuing operations dropped very steeply to 9 cents per share. How steeply? Well, the per-share profit lost 84% of its value this time around. However, it might make you feel a little better to know that 18 cents can be added back, since that was the net worth of repurchase activity relating to preferred shares from the U.S. Treasury department. Therefore, American Express took in 27 cents per share from continuing activities. According to this Reuters piece, that number met expectations.
The Reuters article also points out that revenues fell by 18% and that net charge-offs increased. Not a great picture. Reading through the press release, an investor might come away with a feeling of dread. Management mentions the not-so-strong spending by its cardmembers and the fact that loan losses are at historic levels.
Continue reading American Express not on my watch list after second-quarter data
Posted Jun 18th 2009 1:50PM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, American Express (AXP), MasterCard Inc'A' (MA), Visa Inc. (V)
Discover Financial Services (NYSE:
DFS), a credit-card company that competes with
Visa (NYSE:
V),
MasterCard (NYSE:
MA), and
American Express (NYSE:
AXP), reported earnings for the second quarter. According to this
news summary, Discover beat expectations by posting a loss of $0.18 per share. The market thought that the loss would be as high as $0.29 per share.
If you read the actual press release, you'll see that Discover, on a reported basis, made $0.43 per share. However, we must remember that this profit included an antitrust settlement sourced to Visa and MasterCard. So, once you get rid of that money, you come up with a loss for the quarter.
Continue reading Discover Financial Services beats in Q2 -- buy the stock?
Posted Apr 30th 2009 9:30AM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings reports, American Express (AXP), MasterCard Inc'A' (MA), Visa Inc. (V)
Visa (NYSE: V), whose colleagues include American Express (NYSE: AXP), MasterCard (NYSE: MA), and Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS), reported a Q2 profit on Wednesday that was surprisingly strong. On an adjusted basis, earnings came in at 73 cents per share. Analysts were banking on only 64 cents per share, according to Reuters.
Quite frankly, I can see the disparity between Wall Street's thinking and the ultimate reality. I mean, the economy has been bad (to state the obvious), and people aren't spending as much. This means that they aren't using their credit cards like they used to. Ergo, you might expect Visa to post a lower number.
Continue reading Let's give Visa some credit for its Q2 performance
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