
A high-quality mega-cap compounder trading near fair value. Frameworks sharply disagree on it.
Mkt Cap
$446.93B
P/E
—
PEG
1.58
P/B
66.76
Dividend
0.70%
ROE
232.1%
About the business
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.
Who would buy MA?
Consensus 23/100 · Polarized · Investors strongly disagree — this is where Prism is most useful.
Endorses
· 2 frameworksROE > 20% 232.1% clears "> 20.0%".
ROE > 20% 232.1% clears "> 20.0%".
Rejects
· 3 frameworks1 insiders sold $4.5M on a discretionary basis. Discretionary selling carries more signal than planned disposals, but insiders sell for many non-thesis reasons (taxes, diversification, life events) — do not over-read it. Over the 6M window, insiders are net buyers by 178,550 shares.
In Prism's context
Insider selling on a mature quality name is often compensation-driven and should not over-rotate a thesis built on durable cash flows — though concentrated discretionary selling is always worth flagging.
| Insider | Role | Type | Date | Shares | Avg price | Value | Own |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VERMA RICHARD R | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 27, 2026 | 1,958 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| MIEBACH MICHAEL | Chief Executive Officer | Award / grant | Feb 27, 2026 | 53,710 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| KIRKPATRICK LINDA PISTECCHIA | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 27, 2026 | 11,101 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| MUIGAI SUSAN W | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 27, 2026 | 1,469 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| LING HAI | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 27, 2026 | 9,607 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| LAMBERT JORN | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 27, 2026 | 6,991 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| KRAMER JILL | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 27, 2026 | 1,860 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| HUNTSMAN JON M JR | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 27, 2026 | 1,997 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| ARKELL SANDRA A | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 27, 2026 | 923 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| VOSBURG CRAIG | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 27, 2026 | 17,730 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| SESHADRI RAJEEV | Officer | Award / grant | Feb 27, 2026 | 10,813 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| MCLAUGHLIN EDWARD GRUNDE | President | Award / grant | Feb 27, 2026 | 12,754 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| SACHIN J. MEHRA | Chief Financial Officer | Award / grant | Feb 27, 2026 | 22,648 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| LING HAI | Officer | Open-market sell | Feb 24, 2026 | 8,971 | $499.20 | $4.48M | Direct |
| LING HAI | Officer | Option exercise | Feb 24, 2026 | 8,971 | $90.10 | $808K | Direct |
| QURESHI RIMA | Director | Stock Gift at price 0.00 per share. | Feb 5, 2026 | 12,083 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
| KRAMER JILL | Officer | Award / grant | Dec 1, 2025 | 9,276 | $0.00 | $0 | Direct |
Insider activity from Yahoo Finance (quoteSummary: insiderTransactions + netSharePurchaseActivity). Cached 6 hours. · Insiders hold 0.6% of shares outstanding.
Net 6M: +178,550 sh
Price history
Drag across the chart to select a custom period — all analysis below refocuses to that window.
What this means: Price near 52-week lows confirms what most frameworks are already flagging: the market is discounting deteriorating fundamentals.
Add Mastercard Incorporated at a hypothetical weight and Prism recalculates your whole book:
Sharpe, Sortino, volatility, max drawdown, beta — before and after.
How much this shifts your top sector weight and overall diversification.
Whether this leans your book more toward Quality, Value, Growth, Deep Value, Income, or Momentum.
Portfolio analytics are part of the member experience.
Sign in to run this simulationMA: 49% estimated probability of outperforming over the next 12M window. 1 of 6 signal families negative (medium confidence). Strongest support: ROE 232%. Main risk to monitor: D/E 2.82 (heavy).
Probabilistic research output, not financial advice. Prism recommendations are based on available data, historical relationships, and model assumptions. They do not guarantee future returns. Conduct independent due diligence before any investment decision.
Backtested and similar-setup statistics may be affected by survivorship bias, look-ahead bias, overfitting, transaction costs, liquidity constraints, and data limitations. Probability estimates are anchored heuristics — not validated forecasts — until the walk-forward backtest pipeline is in place.
P/B 66.76× · FCF yield 3.6%
15% above fair value
Indicative only. Probabilities are model-implied weights for stress-testing — not forecasts.
Operating leverage kicks in or a new product line scales — margins inflect higher, growth steps up by 200–400 bps, and the multiple re-rates as the durability becomes obvious to a wider audience.
Business continues to compound at recent rates — 61% operating margin holds, 16% top-line growth persists, capital allocation stays disciplined. Multiple stays roughly where it is.
Sector: Financial Services. MENA-aware investors can sanity-check whether the US name is offering value relative to regional peers.
| Metric | MA | GCC median | MENA median | Global ex-US |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P/E (TTM) | — | 11.2× | 8.5× | 11.5× |
| P/B | 66.76× | 1.70× | 1.20× | 1.30× |
| Dividend yield | 0.70% | 4.60% | 4.20% | 4.00% |
| ROE | 232.1% |
Reported EPS $4.60 vs $4.76 expected — a manageable miss. Whether it matters depends on cause: input-cost pressure or one-off charges shrug off; demand softness compounds. Trailing operating margin: 60.8%.
A miss without a clear one-off cause raises questions about the durability of the margin structure.
Decelerating growth + a miss is the pattern that resets multiples — even a small miss matters when the prior multiple was full.
Read the cause carefully — input costs are forgiveable, demand softness is not.
Next earnings
Thu, Jul 30 · consensus EPS $4.76 · last actual $4.60
P/E Ratio (TTM)
N/A
PEG Ratio
1.58
P/B Ratio
66.76
EPS Growth
21.2%
Revenue Growth
15.8%
Debt / Equity
2.82
Net Cash / Share
$-12.25
Return on Equity
232.1%
Gross Margin
100.0%
Operating Margin
60.8%
FCF / Share
$18.41
Current Ratio
0.98
P/B < 1.0 (below book) is 66.76× — fails "< 1.00×".
FCF Yield > 7% is 3.6% — fails "> 7.0%".
P/B < 1.5 is 66.76× — fails "< 1.50×".
Roughly fairly valued; valuation is a neutral input.
Returns and margins are healthy and consistent.
Leverage is high relative to coverage — balance-sheet risk on the table.
Price trend is unremarkable — neither tailwind nor headwind.
Behavioural read is mixed — some accumulation, some distribution.
Recent miss and / or risk patterns weigh on the catalyst path.
Among 98 historical setups with similar Prism Score and signal-agreement profiles, 50% beat the benchmark over the next 12 months, with average excess return of +0.3% / yr.
ROE 232% · Op margin 61%
D/E 2.82 · CR 0.98
Net selling — 6 insiders
3 tracked holders · peak 18.1%
0.70% yield + buyback runway
21% through 52w range
EPS 21% · Rev 16%
A growth-rate scare or a quarter of margin compression resets the multiple. The business is still fine, but the price was assuming a level of compounding that takes 12–24 months to re-prove.
| 15.0% |
| 17.0% |
| 12.0% |
Institutional Own.
91.4%
Insider Own.
0.6%
Dividend Yield
0.70%
Book Value / Share
$7.58
Superinvestor ownership
Held by 3 tracked superinvestors · peak weight 16.1%
Chuck Akre
Akre Capital Management · Q4 2025
Tom Russo
Gardner Russo & Quinn · Q4 2025
Guy Spier
Aquamarine Capital · Q4 2025
Weights reflect each investor's latest 13F or factsheet snapshot. Data lags real time by 45+ days.