Payments Stocks Fall Across The Board

The payments industry experienced a down week across the board on the stock market, with every separate industry falling by at least -1.10 percent.

Payments’ overall -1.38 percent drop was driven in large part by a huge drop in the prepaid industry, which fell -13.87 percent as news of Walmart’s and American Express’ Bluebird hitting shelves raises serious questions about the future of other prepaid players.

As a result, the two worst-performing companies in this week’s index are two prepaid competitors: NetSpend Holdings Inc. and Green Dot Inc. NetSpend fell -8.93 percent to $9.79, while Green Dot lost a whopping -23.74 percent of its value, falling to $9.80. Green Dot has lost over half of its value over the past three months, and remains the most volatile stock in our index.

Only Micros Systems Inc. and Fidelity National Information Services Inc. had positive weeks. Micros gained 2.06 percent to reach $48.15 a share after receiving a neutral rating. Fidelity grew to $31.88 for a 1.21 percent gain.

The networks industry fell -1.10 percent – a reversal of fortune one week after each network saw growth. MasterCard and Visa saw modest drops of -0.40 percent and -0.81 percent, respectively. American Express fell -1.14 percent to $57.89 a share, while Discover was the biggest networks loser, dropping -3.96 percent to $38.79.

The biggest fallers outside of the prepaid industry were MoneyGram International and Heartland Payment Systems Inc., which each fell nearly eight percent to $26.91 and $16.11, respectively.