4-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: MasterCard (MA)

4-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: MasterCard

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Based on the aggregated intelligence of 180,000-plus investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, credit card giant MasterCard (NYSE: MA ) has earned a respected four-star ranking.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at MasterCard's business and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

MasterCard facts


Headquarters (founded)	Purchase, N.Y. (1966)
Market Cap	$52.6 billion
Industry	Data processing and outsourced services
Trailing-12-Month Revenue	$7.1 billion
Management	CEO Ajaypal Banga (since 2010) CFO Martina Hund-Mejean (since 2007)
Return on Equity (average, past 3 years)	42.9%
Cash/Debt	$5.0 billion / $0
Dividend Yield	0.3%
Competitors	American Express Discover Financial Services Visa

Sources: S&P Capital IQ and Motley Fool CAPS.

On CAPS, 92% of the 3,275 members who have rated MasterCard believe that the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward.

Earlier this month, one of those Fools, All-Star Chemdawg, succinctly summed up the MasterCard bull case for our community:

[A]bsolutely sick cash flow ... no debt ... recently doubled dividend and they still have a payout ratio under [10%]. They still have a ton of room to push that higher without anything to worry about ... P/E of 25 is [reasonable] ... and also the fact that almost no one uses cash anymore ... looks pretty healthy from looking at the books. [O]utperform.

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Fool contributor Brian Pacampara owns no position in any of the companies mentioned. Motley Fool newsletter services have recommended buying shares of Visa and creating a write covered strangle position in American Express. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Fool's disclosure policy always gets a perfect score.

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