50% off Premium Yearly
American ExpressAXPCOMMENTJan 27, 2015Stock 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.
This is not growing at the same massive rate that you are seeing with Visa (V-N) and MasterCard (MA-N). The issue is that they want to keep their service level very high and they want to cater to the elite high end customer, so they really have to walk a fine balance between cutting costs. Their mobile initiatives are excellent. They are also doing Optblue, going after the small merchants, which could be very large. Valuation is pretty attractive versus its 2 rivals. Owning all 3 would not be a bad play either.