Mastercard Inc. (MA)
Financials · NYSE · US
Fundamentals
Valuation and ratings
Mastercard Inc. trades at $551.54, which is 21% below the $665.28 our discounted cash flow model puts on the business. On that measure alone it screens as undervalued, though a DCF is an argument rather than a measurement, and the market is frequently right about why something is cheap.
Our moat model scores it 90 out of 100, which is a wide moat. A moat is a structural reason competitors cannot take the profits away, and it matters more to a long holding period than any single quarter's numbers do.
It changes hands at 30.5 times earnings. Be careful reading that in isolation: for a cyclical business a low P/E arrives at the top of the cycle, when profits are peaking and about to fall, which is exactly when the shares look cheapest and are not.
About Mastercard Inc.
Mastercard Incorporated, a technology company, provides transaction processing and other payment-related products and services in the United States and internationally. The company offers products and services for account holders, merchants, financial institutions, digital partners, businesses, governments, and other organizations, such as programs that enable issuers to provide consumers with credits to defer payments; payment products and solutions that allow its customers to access funds in deposit and other accounts; prepaid programs services; consumer bill payment services; and commercial credit, debit, and prepaid payment products and solutions. It also provides solutions that enable businesses or governments to make payments to businesses, including Virtual Card Number, which is generated dynamically from an existing account and leverages the credit limit of the funding account; and a platform to optimize supplier payment enablement campaigns for financial institutions. In addition, the company offers Mastercard Move, which partners with digital messaging and payment platforms to enable consumers to send money directly within applications to other consumers; and partners with central banks, fintechs, and financial institutions, as well as enables various cross-border payment flows. Further, it provides security solutions; marketing, personalization, and issuer and merchant loyalty services; business and operational intelligence, advanced analytics and AI, consulting and agentic solutions, and payments and portfolio optimization; digital and authentication; processing and gateway solutions; and other solutions. The company offers payment solutions and services under the MasterCard, Maestro, and Cirrus names. Mastercard Incorporated was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Purchase, New York.
MA passes 6 of our 30 screens today
Each screen prints the exact criteria it used, and the circumstances in which it is wrong.
Smart money ownership
46 of the funds we track reported a position in their latest SEC 13F filing. Largest first:
- Capital Research Global, Capital Research Global Investors$6.94B · 1.1% of book
- Ken Fisher, Fisher Asset Management, LLC$2.20B · 0.8% of book
- Arrowstreet Capital, ARROWSTREET CAPITAL, LIMITED PARTNERSHIP$1.83B · 1.0% of book
- Lewis Sanders, Sanders Capital, LLC$1.18B · 1.4% of book
- Chuck Akre, AKRE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC$1.14B · 18.6% of book
A word of warning on reading these figures: a 13F reports the market value of a holding, so a fund that traded nothing at all still appears to have sold when the price fell. We found 102 companies where the standard reading gives the opposite answer. Only the share count is honest.
Common questions
Is Mastercard Inc. (MA) undervalued?
Against our discounted cash flow estimate of $665.28, MA at $551.54 is 21% below fair value. That is one model's answer, not a recommendation, and most of a DCF's output sits in a terminal value nobody can forecast.
Which funds own MA?
46 of the institutions we track reported a position in MA in their most recent SEC 13F filing. A 13F is filed up to 45 days after quarter end, so it tells you what a fund held then, not what it holds now.
What is MA's P/E ratio?
MA trades at 30.5 times earnings. A low P/E is not automatically cheap: on a cyclical company it is usually a warning that earnings are at a peak.
The full research page for MA, with financial statements, ownership detail, peer comparison and alerts, is free inside the app.
Data from company filings, exchange quotes and SEC EDGAR 13F disclosures. Quotes are delayed. Metrics we do not have are left out rather than estimated. Educational information, not financial advice.