NEW YORK (TheStreet) - Jim Cramer's charitable trust closed out its position in American Express (AXP) - Get Report on Tuesday, citing "few material new-term catalysts" for the stock.

Cramer's trust Action Alerts PLUS sold 1,200 shares in American Express at about $79.30.

The financial services company is a stock he has been "increasingly cautious on," Cramer and AAP Research Director Jack Mohr wrote.

Shares of American Express are down 15% this year and roughly 8% over the past month.

Wall Street raised concerns after the company announced on Feb. 12 that it was not renewing a contract with Costco Wholesale (COST) - Get Report for a co-branded credit card following the current agreement's expiration on March 31, 2016. The next day, The Wall Street Journal reported that American Express lost its co-branded card contract with JetBlue Airways (JBLU) - Get Report as well. A call to JetBlue was not immediately returned on Wednesday.

Costco announced on March 2 that it entered into a co-branded credit card agreement with Visa (V) - Get Report.

"We see few material new-term catalysts and believe the bull story behind this has dampened in light of several recent disappointing developments, including the loss of the Costco and JetBlue contracts," Cramer wrote on Tuesday. "We much prefer our MasterCard (MA) - Get Report position over American Express and do not have the patience to wait for a long-term turnaround."

Here's what analysts said recently about American Express.

Feb. 13
David Hilder, Drexel Hamilton (Buy; $85 PT)
We continue to view AXP as a powerful global payments franchise producing exceptional returns (29% return on equity in 2014), and well-positioned through its strong capital base to continue returning 80-100% of earnings to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends.

The financial impact of allowing AXP's merchant acceptance and cobranded credit card agreement to expire was clearly greater than the market had expected, as AXP had not previously disclosed how much of its billed business (about 8%) or card loans (about 20%) or cards-in-force (about 10%) were attributable to Costco and its customers.

After the market close on Friday (2/13), various news outlets reported that JetBlue Airlines and American Express would not renew their 10-year cobranded agreement, which is set to expire in 2015. The news is not a complete surprise, as media reports in late October 2014 [indicated that the airline was soliciting bids to replace Amex. However, in the wake of the Costco agreement news, we would view the loss of Jetblue business as yet another headwind to stock performance and revenues for the company.

Feb. 19
John Hecht, Jefferies (Hold; $85 PT)
This morning, the US District Court ruled that AXP's anti-steering rules with merchants is a violation of US anti-trust law. This ruling potentially means that American Express will no longer be able to prohibit merchants from steering customers to lower-priced cards. The judge said he would issue remedies against AXP at a later date and the ruling notes that any proposed injunctions to the rule shall be filed within 30 days of this order. The court case is United States of America, et al v. American Express Co, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, No. 10-04496.

We expect an appeal from AXP and note the ruling will likely not go in to force in the near-term. That said, if the ruling is eventually enforced, we believe it could pressure AXP's discount rates (as they would potentially need to lower them to competitor rates to drive billed business) and/or pressure billed business growth if AXP does not lower its discount rates. American Express previously disclosed in its regulatory filings that it could suffer a "material adverse effect on [its] business" if it loses the case.

We maintain our Hold rating and $85 price target. This decision represents another negative development for AXP (following last week's announcement of the ending of its relationship with Costco).

TheStreet Ratings team rates AMERICAN EXPRESS CO as a Buy with a ratings score of A-. TheStreet Ratings team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate AMERICAN EXPRESS CO (AXP) a BUY. This is based on the convergence of positive investment measures, which should help this stock outperform the majority of stocks that we rate. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its notable return on equity, good cash flow from operations, increase in net income, growth in earnings per share and reasonable valuation levels. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had lackluster performance in the stock itself."

Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings team are as follows:

• The return on equity has improved slightly when compared to the same quarter one year prior. This can be construed as a modest strength in the organization. When compared to other companies in the Consumer Finance industry and the overall market, AMERICAN EXPRESS CO's return on equity exceeds that of the industry average and significantly exceeds that of the S&P 500.
• Net operating cash flow has significantly increased by 598.83% to $2,404.00 million when compared to the same quarter last year. In addition, AMERICAN EXPRESS CO has also vastly surpassed the industry average cash flow growth rate of 259.70%.
• The net income growth from the same quarter one year ago has exceeded that of the Consumer Finance industry average, but is less than that of the S&P 500. The net income increased by 10.6% when compared to the same quarter one year prior, going from $1,308.00 million to $1,447.00 million.
• Regardless of the drop in revenue, the company managed to outperform against the industry average of 7.5%. Since the same quarter one year prior, revenues slightly dropped by 2.4%. The declining revenue has not hurt the company's bottom line, with increasing earnings per share.
• AMERICAN EXPRESS CO has improved earnings per share by 14.9% in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company has demonstrated a pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past two years. However, we anticipate underperformance relative to this pattern in the coming year. During the past fiscal year, AMERICAN EXPRESS CO increased its bottom line by earning $5.55 versus $4.88 in the prior year. For the next year, the market is expecting a contraction of 0.9% in earnings ($5.50 versus $5.55).

• You can view the full analysis from the report here: AXP Ratings Report