Put It on MasterCard
By BILL ALPERT | Double-digit growth should soon resume for the plastic powerhouse.

MASTERCARD IS OUTNUMBERED BY VISA in most every way.

Visa handles 60% of the world's card swipes, MasterCard about 30%. 

Editor's Note:  There is however, an opportunity for MasterCard to change that, Consider that there are ZERO card swipes being done on the web.

Visa carries more debit-card transactions.  Editor's Note:  MC can change that too...

And even after a recent bounce in both stocks, Visa shares go for about 19 times the earnings forecast for 2010 (ignoring some noncash expenses), while MasterCard trades at 15 times its anticipated earnings.

The numbers are what they are.  Except, perhaps, the last one: MasterCard's valuation discount. A swelling chorus on Wall Street says MasterCard is underrated and may be the better play in an economic recovery.  Editor's Note:  MasterCard has played the "security card"  (click here)

JPMorgan analyst Tien-tsin Huang, for instance, argues that the Purchase, N.Y.-based bank-card network merits at least a 16 times price/earnings multiple of his 2010 forecast of $12.25 a share in cash earnings. Such a re-rating seems to have taken place in recent weeks, with MasterCard shares (ticker: MA) moving from $157 to 185.

They could go above 200. 

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