Amid Tech Rout, Mixed Results For Payments Stocks

Much was made last week of the Trump tech rout, where some of the biggest players in the tech-heavy Nasdaq saw shares drop, even while other sectors rose. Among concerns hitting the sector: increased scrutiny on international expansion efforts as a new administration takes shape. For payments stocks, the results were mixed, with some positive momentum maintained in the wake of recent earnings reports.

USA Technologies met results earlier this month, and recent sessions have caught the common shares in an updraft, with 11 percent gained for this small-cap ($175 million market cap) player. MoneyGram continued to rise, too, after having shown third quarter earnings that surpassed expectations. More recently, the read across from the post-election immigration policy, as Reuters reported earlier in the month, is that the deportations of undocumented Mexican migrants (Mexico remains an important MoneyGram market) may be an eventuality but that they will not begin soon, possibly implying that remittance flows may not be in any danger of wavering.

Among the names that lost ground, the downside was somewhat muted, with Mitek the biggest loser, off 3 percent on the week. Last week, Fujitsu said that it had launched, in partnership with Mitek, among others, onboarding technology geared toward financial institutions. That percentage loss was paced by Capital One, witch saw a downgrade by Stifel Nicolaus, from buy to hold, and that was predicated at least in part on valuation, with the stock up double-digit percentages in just a few weeks.