MasterCard (MA) shares closed at $377.80 in the last trading session, up +0.44% from the previous day. This move outpaced the S&P 500’s daily gain of 0.37%. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 0.01% and the Nasdaq, an index with high technology potential, lost 1.26%.

Prior to today’s trading, shares in the debit and credit card payment processor had gained 2.07% in the past month. This lags behind gains of 3.81% in the business services sector and 4.31% in the S&P 500 over that time.

MasterCard will look to demonstrate its strength ahead of its next earnings report. The company is expected to report earnings per share of $2.98, up 16.41% from the previous quarter. Meanwhile, our latest consensus forecast assumes revenues of $6.18bn, up 12.48% from the previous quarter.

MA’s consensus forecast for the full year Zacks assumes earnings of $12.25 per share and revenue of $25.15bn. These results will be +15.02% and +13.11% year-on-year respectively.

It is also important to note the recent changes in analysts’ estimates for MasterCard. Recent revisions tend to reflect recent near-term business trends. Thus, positive valuation revisions reflect analysts’ optimism about the company’s business and profitability.

Digging deeper into the valuation, MasterCard’s current forward P/E ratio is 30.69. The industry average Forward P/E ratio is 13.84, so we can conclude that MasterCard is trading at a premium.