Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Credit/debit card systems in troubles?

I do not like give catastrophic forecast, I prefer to give advices on good companies where you could buy value stocks for your long term profitable growth.

But, in this case, I have to warn you on one of the company, or better, on a sector I have talked about on this blog: Credit Cards.

I am not erasing the past words, I strongly believe that electronics payments in long term will grow more and more and so the companies, like Visa, who provides that kind of services.
The problem is that after Subprime disaster, there could be another one, very soon, linked to Credit/debit Card insolvency problems. In US a lot of banks were giving credit, debit and other different payment systems to persons that not always are able to pay. That it will be more and more true in the following months/years.

The credit exposure linked to this items is, in US, 950 bn $ (more of the Paulson plan, that doesn't include this subject) and problems in that area are increasing exponentially. (41 bn this year, 92 bn forecast for 2009).

Now, our best picked strong buy recommendation VISA isn't exposed directly, because they're just working over the transaction and they're not making credit to the customers. The credit problems are bound to the Banks, not to Visa that is just the way of payments.
If this bubble will explode, banks will not give Credit and/or Debit Card to customers so easily as nowadays and this market will considerably slow down in next years. By the way the outlook on the company Visa is still good and it represents without doubts one of those fortress-company with few competitors that Buffett likes a lot, the problem could be the sector, I will write on this subjet in the future again.

4 comments:

Carlo said...

I read something about credit cards bubble in a interview with Nouriel Roubini (the first economist who predicted the actual crisis in 2006 and for this reason was called "Dr. Doom" or "Dr. No"). Here his website: http://www.rgemonitor.com/blog/roubini/

Anonymous said...

Hi Roberto,

like reported in the last 'Vernimmen letter' : "That our readers live their first financial crisis can rest assured: as long as there are men and women on this earth, there will be speculative bubbles and financial crises. They will see more!"

Somebody said that the next bubble will be "green". It means that the Kyoto protocol and the planet health will have a strong impact on the economy in the coming years.
All company, that never mind about pollution before, want to save the planet and put lot of money in green projects.

I love the planet and I hope that everything necessary will be done.
But I fear it is just the new fashion: clients care about green...we will be green!

My question:

Kyoto protocol...strong potential, strong risk, next bubble??? What you think about?


Luca

Roberto said...

Dear readers,
I agree about the Green Bubble, actually it was already running and increasing as Bubble: -water -eolic -solar energy -ethanol were trading a very high P/E ration before the crack. I had talked about this subject in one of my previous post dedicated to Solar Energy and Q-Cells. I really believe that this will be the next big bubble.
I'll talk more in details about that in next post. However, since this Blog s about Value Investment, we try to invest in companies in which we trust and not in companies just because they're running in a bubble.
What about Banks as next big running up?
...

QUALITY STOCKS UNDER 5 DOLLARS said...

The financial system is in trouble alright.