What? Mastercard
(MA)
is an international company? Isn't it something totally linked to declining home values in Florida and California? What's this buyback stuff? Aren't they worried about home mortgage problems? Isn't this in the same league as MBI
(MBIA)
-- my new whipping boy because they are sure that I am a know-nothing lunatic?
No, No, No.
This is a cash machine. Or, more accurately, a credit card machine. It is a play on the end of paper worldwide. It is no more than that. It is not a play on spending; it is not a play on the U.S. consumer. It is a play on convenience and the love of plastic worldwide. The high double-digit growth rates -- like 41% in Southeast Asia and 24% in Latin America, where the middle class loves plastic, trumps the decline in California use any day.
Meanwhile this stock remains the favorite proxy for spending by the shorts. We still have one-fifth of the float short.
I don't like to recommend stocks that are up 17, but this one's going to $200 plain and simple, perhaps just on the backs of the shorts!
Random Musings: Really good chance to dump the mortgage derivatives into the short-squeeze. ...Yes Transocean
(RIG)
was fabulous. So was the UNH
(UNH)
buyback, which is really the sign of the company saying "OK, enough, we know you hate us but we don't!"...Goldman
(GS)
being investigated for being right? Too funny. ... VMware
(VMW)
short is out of hand!! ... How long will the Chinese let LVS and WYNN go down?? ... Buffalo Wild Wings
(BWLD)
was simply awful. ... Chicago Bridge & Iron
(CBI)
is so solid.
At the time of publication, Cramer was long RIG and GS.
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