American Express Outlook Lifts Shares

American Express(AXP Quote) shares jumped as much as 5% Wednesday morning, as the credit card and travel services company maintains confidence in its earnings growth even as other financial stocks struggle.

In a presentation made at a Keefe Bruyette conference, American Express said it expects to earn in the range of $3.51 to $3.61 per share for 2008. Analysts had been forecasting $3.32 a share, according to Thomson Reuters. Analysts also forecast growth to be a negative 2.1%, but American Express projects a 4% to 6% growth in earnings per share and a trajectory growth of 12% to 15%.

American Express shares charged ahead as high as $45.54, but more recently were trading up 4.2% to $46.18.

Write-offs continue to plague American Express, but the card company promotes its write-off levels to be lower than that its peers. Its first-quarter 2008 net write-offs were 4.3%, but including interest and fees, the number was 5.3%. This compares to Capital One Financial's(COF Quote) 5.9% in write-offs and Citigroup's(C Quote) 5.8% level.

Goldman Sachs analyst James Fotheringham on Tuesday raised his price target to $57 from $53 and increased his estimates to $3.35 for 2008. He admits that the company significantly beat his first-quarter estimates and he thinks the shares are still undervalued, but isn't convinced the stock will move up very much this year.

"We remain concerned about consumer credit (we estimate a net write-off rate on managed loans of 5.8% in 2008 and 6.4% in 2009)," he wrote Tuesday.