Mastercard Joins the Work-From-Home Bandwagon

Mastercard said its employees will not have to return to offices until it is safe to do so

More and more companies are jumping on the trend of allowing their employees to do remote work for the foreseeable future, even as lockdown restrictions are being lifted. The list includes Twitter (TWTR), Visa (V), American Express (AXP), and now Mastercard Inc (NYSE:MA). While not as extreme as Twitter, which told their employees they could work from home "forever" if they wished, Mastercard said it will not ask its workers to return to offices until the coronavirus is under control, whether by vaccine or some other measure. At last check, MA is down 0.3% at $297.78, as the broader market subsides.

Earlier this week, MA broke north of its 200-day moving average, which had served as a stiff ceiling on the charts ever since the security's early March collapse. The stock is still trading well above this area this morning, just one day after hitting a nearly three-month high. MA is now set to snap a five-day win streak -- its longest since mid-February.

Analysts, for the most part, are optimistic on Mastercard, with 23 calling it a "buy" or better, compared to four giving it a tepid "hold" rating. The consensus 12-month price target of $312, meanwhile, is a slim 4.4% premium to current levels.

While calls are still outnumbering puts on an overall basis, the appetite for bearish bets is unusually healthy of late. This is per MA's 10-day put/call volume ratio of 0.84 at the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX), which sits in the 72nd percentile of its annual range.