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MasterCard (MA) Dips More Than Broader Markets: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, MasterCard (MA - Free Report) closed at $364.08, marking a -0.53% move from the previous day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.08%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the processor of debit and credit card payments had lost 2.5% over the past month. This has lagged the Business Services sector's loss of 0.71% and the S&P 500's gain of 1.68% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from MA as it approaches its next earnings report date. On that day, MA is projected to report earnings of $1.71 per share, which would represent year-over-year growth of 25.74%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $4.35 billion, up 30.32% from the prior-year quarter.

MA's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $7.75 per share and revenue of $18.33 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +20.53% and +19.78%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for MA should also be noted by investors. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

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 ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell). It has a remarkable, outside-audited track record of success, with #1 stocks delivering an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.63% lower. MA is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, MA currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 47.23. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 23.99, so we one might conclude that MA is trading at a premium comparatively.

We can also see that MA currently has a PEG ratio of 2.14. 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 currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.39 as of yesterday's close.

The Financial Transaction Services industry is part of the Business Services sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 199, which puts it in the bottom 22% 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.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.


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