Visa, MasterCard selloff bring buying opportunity, says William Blair

William Blair analyst Andrew Jeffrey recommends using today’s weakness in shares of Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA) as a buying opportunity. The stocks are down after the Wall Street Journal reported that some large merchants, including Walmart and Amazon.com, are exploring how to issue or use stablecoins to bypass the traditional fees of card-based systems. Blair does not believe stablecoins are well suited for business-to-consumer commerce, even as merchants view them as a potential means of lowering card acceptance costs. Visa and Mastercard are building stablecoin infrastructure that can support commerce on their rails, positioning the companies to continue partnering with banks for issuance while possibly lowering merchant acceptance costs, the analyst tells investors in a research note. William Blair has Outperform ratings on both stocks.