Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund Increases Stock Position in Mastercard Incorporated $MA

Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund boosted its holdings in Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA) by 34.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 94,300 shares of the credit services provider’s stock after buying an additional 24,283 shares during the period. Mastercard makes up about 0.7% of Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 17th largest position. Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund’s holdings in Mastercard were worth $53,639,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Kingstone Capital Partners Texas LLC bought a new position in Mastercard during the 2nd quarter valued at $11,421,213,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Mastercard by 55,868.1% during the 2nd quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 13,421,148 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $7,541,880,000 after acquiring an additional 13,397,168 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Mastercard in the second quarter worth $6,725,317,000. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its stake in Mastercard by 25.6% during the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 6,372,404 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $3,580,909,000 after purchasing an additional 1,299,977 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of Mastercard by 1.2% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 78,475,807 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $44,098,695,000 after buying an additional 931,132 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 97.28% of the company’s stock.

Key Mastercard News

Here are the key news stories impacting Mastercard this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Non-payments businesses (data, fraud, tokenization, commerce services) are becoming a meaningful revenue growth story for Visa and Mastercard, offering diversification away from pure transaction fees and supporting longer?term revenue durability. How nonpayments became big business at Visa and Mastercard
• Positive Sentiment: Mastercard is pushing commerce?media and AI-driven buying initiatives (new ad/commerce products and agent-driven buying), which could create new, higher-margin revenue streams if adopted at scale. This supports growth expectations beyond interchange. Mastercard’s commerce media boss on what happens when AI agents do the buying
• Positive Sentiment: Recent analyst pieces (Zacks and other coverage) highlight Mastercard’s growth profile and quality metrics, which can support investor conviction and valuation multiple stability. Here’s Why MasterCard (MA) is a Strong Growth Stock
• Neutral Sentiment: Apple Card issuer is moving to Chase — issuer change may affect card co?branding dynamics but is unlikely to meaningfully change Mastercard’s global network economics in the near term; impact is uncertain. Apple Card moving to Chase as issuer, confirms Apple
• Neutral Sentiment: Mastercard licensed QNB to expand payment services in Syria — geographic expansion is a positive for reach but likely immaterial to near?term EPS. Mastercard licenses QNB to expand payment services in Syria
• Negative Sentiment: Reports of a proposed settlement involving Visa and Mastercard that could change the checkout experience (potentially affecting interchange, routing or merchant fee dynamics) are creating regulatory/legal risk and investor concern about future fee revenue. This is a direct potential headwind to core transaction-based profits. Proposed Visa, Mastercard settlement could change checkout experience for shoppers
• Negative Sentiment: Monness Crespi reiterated a Hold and set a $525 price target on MA (below recent trading levels), which can exert short?term downward pressure by signaling limited near?term upside to some investors. Why is Mastercard Incorporated (MA) One of the Best Major Stocks to Invest in Right Now?

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

MA has been the subject of several recent research reports. Morgan Stanley set a $665.00 price target on shares of Mastercard and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, October 31st. Truist Financial decreased their target price on Mastercard from $638.00 to $630.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, November 4th. Robert W. Baird raised their price objective on shares of Mastercard from $640.00 to $660.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, October 6th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on Mastercard from $669.00 to $660.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, October 31st. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “buy (b)” rating on shares of Mastercard in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $657.48.

Mastercard Stock Down 0.0%

Shares of MA stock opened at $579.82 on Friday. Mastercard Incorporated has a one year low of $465.59 and a one year high of $601.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.40, a current ratio of 1.12 and a quick ratio of 1.12. The stock has a market cap of $520.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 37.07, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.97 and a beta of 0.86. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $556.97 and a 200 day moving average price of $566.47.

Mastercard (NYSE:MA) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, October 30th. The credit services provider reported $4.38 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $4.31 by $0.07. Mastercard had a net margin of 45.28% and a return on equity of 202.03%. The business had revenue of $8.60 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.53 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $3.89 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 16.7% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts predict that Mastercard Incorporated will post 15.91 earnings per share for the current year.

Mastercard Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, February 9th. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 9th will be issued a $0.87 dividend. This represents a $3.48 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.6%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 9th. This is a positive change from Mastercard’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.76. Mastercard’s dividend payout ratio is 22.25%.

About Mastercard

Mastercard Incorporated is a global payments technology company that operates a network connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 200 countries and territories. The company facilitates electronic payments and transaction processing for credit, debit and prepaid card products carrying the Mastercard brand, while also providing a range of payment-related services to issuers, acquirers and merchants. Its technology and network enable authorization, clearing and settlement of payments and support a broad set of use cases including point-of-sale, e-commerce and mobile payments.

Beyond core transaction processing, Mastercard offers a suite of value-added services such as fraud and risk management, identity and authentication tools, tokenization and digital wallet support, cross-border and commercial payment solutions, and data analytics and consulting services for merchants and financial partners.