Mastercard Earnings: Growth Picks Up

Mastercard’s recent results suggested that consumer spending was largely holding steady as impacts from one-time issues started to fade. But fourth-quarter results suggest the environment may be improving a bit. We will maintain our $465 fair value estimate. We see the shares as modestly overvalued. The quarter suggests the near-term outlook may be a little better than we had anticipated, and we think the market is reacting to that, but we believe significant uncertainty still exists on this front.