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.

Here are some highlights from last week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Aetna Inc. (NYSE: AET) reported better-than-expected Q3 earnings and revenue, sending shares higher.
• Allergan Inc. (NYSE: AGN) reported better-than-expected Q3 numbers, sending shares higher.
• Bare Escentuals Inc. (NASDAQ: BARE) Q3 profit easily topped analysts' estimates, and shares surged.
• Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. (NYSE: COG) received an upgrade following the release of its Q3 numbers.
• Estee Lauder Companies Inc. (NYSE: EL) reported strong Q1 results, sending shares higher.
• E*Trade Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ETFC) reported a smaller-than-expected net loss for Q3.
• Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (NYSE: GT) Q3 earnings topped estimates and revenue was up sequentially.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer still doesn't like this market -- the good GDP figure isn't enough to sustain us.

You know when you have gotten too negative? When you pick up the paper and the lead story is "Slump Sinks Visa Program," and you say, "That's it! I can't take it ... Visa was the one bright spot in my portfolio, and now they've taken that away!"

Then you read the story and you know it is not about bank fee rates or credit card usage or congressional bashing for once, but about a skilled workers program. It has nothing to do with the red-hot Visa (NYSE: V) (Cramer's Take) at all.

Visa (NYSE: V) is one of my favorite businesses on Wall Street. It should be an excellent long-term investment. People will always use branded credit cards, and Visa doesn't take a lot of risk. It simply collects a little of the spoils on each transaction. What a model!

According to TheStreet.com, Visa increased top-line sales by 10% in the fourth quarter, and expanded per-share profit by 28% to 74 cents, excluding certain items. Forecasts were for 72 cents per share.

So this earnings season hasn't turned out as bad as some had feared. In fact, we've seen some pretty stellar results from the likes of Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO).

Then there was the Fed's Beige Book report, which suggested that the U.S. economy had stabilized -- and even improved a bit in some sectors.

Well, the earnings crunch rolls on this coming week leading up to Halloween. Do analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect more treats or tricks from coming quarterly reports?

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.

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.

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.

Here are some highlights from last week's earnings coverage from BloggingStocks:

• Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) reported a surprise profit but is expected to return to losses next quarter.
• Coach Inc. (NYSE: COH) profit and revenue were in line with expectations, sending shares lower.
• Corning Inc. (NYSE: GLW) posted better-than-expected earnings but other concerns drove down shares.
• eHealth Inc. (NASDAQ: EHTH) reported solid Q2 numbers but Wall Street was not impressed.
• Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (NYSE: GT) posted a smaller-than-expected Q2 loss, sending shares higher.
• JAKKS Pacific Inc. (NASDAQ: JAKK) reported swinging to a Q2 net loss and revenues were flat.

Visa (NYSE: V) is changing presidents and reorganizing the management team.

The biggest credit card network in the world is consolidating the oversight of its sales, client service, marketing, product development, and "innovation" (is that the group that thought it would be smart to securitize high-risk subprime consumer debt?) functions. John "Hans" Morris will step down as president but stay with the company through the end of the year in another role (wow, lots of euphemism in there).

MasterCard (NYSE: MA - option chain) shares are rising today after an analyst writing in this week's Barron's said the company's stock might be a better bargain than that of competitor Visa (NYSE: V). If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on MA.

MA opened this morning at $187.94. So far today the stock has hit a low of $187.35 and a high of $192.44. As of 11:45, MA is trading at $191.62 up $6.15 (3.3%). The chart for MA looks bullish and S&P gives MA a positive 5 STARS (out of 5) strong buy ranking.

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.

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.

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.

Pork producers aren't the only stocks getting hammered by swine flu fears. Brokerage JPMorgan observed today that "concerns over the swine flu outbreak could weigh on MasterCard Inc. (NYSE: MA - option chain) / Visa Inc. (NYSE: V - option chain) shares due to fears that cross-border fees may suffer from reduced cross-border travel related to the virus," sending shares of both companies lower at the sound of the opening bell.

Although JPMorgan added that it's too early to tell what impact the swine flu will have on MasterCard and Visa, the firm asserted that "the risk is worth monitoring in our view."