Mastercard Incorporated $MA Position Lowered by Great Lakes Advisors LLC

Key Points

• Great Lakes Advisors LLC reduced its Mastercard stake by 11.2% in the fourth quarter, selling 5,456 shares and leaving it with 43,151 shares valued at about $24.6 million.
• Mastercard is pushing into AI-driven and next-generation payments, including launching Agent Pay for Machines (AP4M), partnering on autonomous AI transactions, and expanding stablecoin settlement capabilities.
• Despite recent strategic momentum, investors are still watching legal and fee pressure from the Visa/Mastercard swipe-fee settlement, which could limit upside for payment networks over time.

Great Lakes Advisors LLC decreased its stake in shares of Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA - Free Report) by 11.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 43,151 shares of the credit services provider's stock after selling 5,456 shares during the period. Great Lakes Advisors LLC's holdings in Mastercard were worth $24,634,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of MA. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Mastercard during the fourth quarter worth about $6,705,708,000. State Street Corp raised its stake in Mastercard by 2.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 36,580,374 shares of the credit services provider's stock worth $20,807,283,000 after acquiring an additional 997,536 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in Mastercard by 1.2% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 79,431,340 shares of the credit services provider's stock worth $45,181,341,000 after acquiring an additional 955,533 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its stake in Mastercard by 792.2% during the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 865,523 shares of the credit services provider's stock worth $494,110,000 after acquiring an additional 768,514 shares during the period. Finally, Capital International Investors raised its stake in Mastercard by 4.4% during the fourth quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 17,964,658 shares of the credit services provider's stock worth $10,256,368,000 after acquiring an additional 759,584 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 97.28% of the company's stock.

Key Stories Impacting Mastercard

Here are the key news stories impacting Mastercard this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Mastercard launched Agent Pay for Machines / AP4M, a new protocol that lets AI agents and machines make secure payments, with support from 30+ industry participants and partners including major crypto and fintech names. This could open a new growth avenue in AI-powered commerce and strengthen Mastercard’s long-term relevance in digital payments.
• Positive Sentiment: The company also announced a partnership with a Chicago startup to support autonomous AI transactions, reinforcing its push into next-generation payment infrastructure and programmable payments.
• Positive Sentiment: Mastercard is expanding settlement capabilities using stablecoins, which may improve cross-border and digital asset settlement options and support broader adoption in crypto-linked payment flows.
• Neutral Sentiment: Reports highlighted leadership changes at Mastercard, which could signal strategic adjustments but does not yet clearly indicate a direct financial impact.
• Neutral Sentiment: Investors are also tracking the Visa/Mastercard swipe-fee settlement, which received preliminary judicial approval. While this removes some legal uncertainty, it also keeps attention on pricing and merchant-fee pressure that could shape the company’s economics over time.
• Negative Sentiment: The swipe-fee settlement may limit upside for payment networks by reinforcing merchant concessions and potential fee scrutiny, which could weigh on sentiment toward Mastercard (MA) despite the recent product momentum.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Weiss Ratings lowered shares of Mastercard from a "buy (b-)" rating to a "hold (c+)" rating in a research note on Friday, April 24th. BMO Capital Markets assumed coverage on shares of Mastercard in a research note on Tuesday, April 21st. They set an "outperform" rating and a $605.00 price objective on the stock. Bank of America assumed coverage on shares of Mastercard in a research note on Thursday, March 5th. They set a "buy" rating and a $700.00 price objective on the stock. Loop Capital reiterated a "buy" rating and set a $631.00 price objective on shares of Mastercard in a research note on Wednesday, June 3rd. Finally, Truist Financial dropped their price objective on shares of Mastercard from $590.00 to $561.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, May 12th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating, one has issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $656.04.

Mastercard Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:MA opened at $486.04 on Friday. The firm's 50 day moving average is $499.36 and its two-hundred day moving average is $523.82. Mastercard Incorporated has a 52 week low of $464.52 and a 52 week high of $601.77. The firm has a market capitalization of $429.46 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.13, a PEG ratio of 1.53 and a beta of 0.74. The company has a current ratio of 0.98, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.56.

Mastercard (NYSE:MA - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The credit services provider reported $4.60 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $4.41 by $0.19. Mastercard had a net margin of 45.88% and a return on equity of 212.96%. The company had revenue of $8.40 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $8.26 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.73 earnings per share. Mastercard's revenue was up 15.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that Mastercard Incorporated will post 19.6 earnings per share for the current year.

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.

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