Topic: How To Invest

Q: Pat, I hold a position in Mastercard and have been happy with its performance. I can’t find any recent opinion from you on this stock and would appreciate your comments. Thank you.

Article Excerpt

A: Mastercard Inc., $363.96, symbol MA on New York (Shares outstanding: 969.7 million; Market cap: $358.7 billion; www.mastercard.com), is the world’s second-largest payment processor behind only Visa (symbol V on New York). Mastercard makes money from every transaction it processes for Mastercard-branded credit cards both domestically and cross-border. The more transactions made by Mastercard account holders, the more revenue for the company. Over the past five years, Mastercard’s total revenue rose 51.2%, from $12.5 billion in 2017 to $18.9 billion in 2021. Earnings increased 69.9%, from $4.9 billion ($4.58 per share) in 2017 to $8.3 billion ($8.40 per share) in 2021. In the quarter ended December 31, 2021, revenue was up 26.6%, to $5.2 billion from $4.1 billion a year earlier. Revenues were higher due to a 53% increase in cross-border payment volumes. In total, the company processed $2.1 trillion in gross dollar volume (GDV), 23% higher than a year earlier. For all of 2021, Mastercard’s global GDV was $7.72 trillion, up 21.9% from…