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American ExpressAXPDON'T BUYJul 12, 2013Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Jun 18, 2026. Market Open.
The valuation of Visa and Mastercard has been elevated, but the growth has supported it. AmEx has the cheaper valuation; they benefit from international travel. He prefers AXP. He owns a little Visa. The future of payments processing? It's Apple Pay, which kids use through their phones. The sector has a lot of moving parts and competition, so it's hard to say where it's going.
Sold his stock at $65 because he thought it was fully valued. This is a fundamentally different company than Visa (V-N) or MasterCard (MC-N). They actually issue credit cards so therefore they take on credit and default risks and bear the burden of this themselves. If there is softness in the economy, which it looks like we are going to have, you will see defaults go up and you’ll see credit risks going into this company. He would be inclined to own something like Visa or MasterCard.