The giant financial services corporation Master Card (NYSE:MA)had a tough time throughout 2014 especially during the company’s dealing abroad in Russia and elsewhere due to geopolitical scenarios. The currency valuation and devaluation was yet another factor in the company’s performance. However the company’s share ended with a high value at the end of the year and surprised everyone. The analysts forecast that the company is likely to give a very strong financial earnings report this week as well.

The expectations are that the company will have solid gains in revenues and profits. However, the company has a strong rival standing in its way, who is also not willing to step down without a fight. The company has yet to deal with a competitor like Visa as well. Visa on the other hand has had solid and strong financial performance and has given relatively higher earnings reports.The analysts estimate that the company had earnings per shares of $0.67 with a 17.5% change from the previous year.

The company’s Revenue estimates are around $2.39Billion with a 12.5% change from the previous year. Moreover the company managed to beat only 3% earnings in all its quarters. The company only managed to provide less earning last year. However the company’s stock still rose by a full 12%. More or less the company did earn some revenue but all those revenue gains came right after the company posted its third quarterly earnings report in late October.

The company then enjoyed about a 10% increase in its transactions with a revenue figure of 13%. Moreover the most stunning thing was the rapid increase in the earnings per share which rose by a full 19%. The EPS boosting was good, however the currency left a bad and a negative impact on the company. Another noticeable thing about the company was the difference between its foreign and domestic branches. The company’s foreign business went well and earned more as compared to its domestic business.

The company performed exceptionally well abroad despite the challenges it faced in Europe and elsewhere.The company also benefit from the occasional opportunities like the holidays seasons. Its sales dramatically rose in US through Christmas holidays starting from black Friday. The use of debit and credit card during these time periods gives the companies an opportunity to strive forward. The experts suggest that the improvement in economic conditions will benefit the company as its sales volume will further increase.

The other major problem occurred for the company recently was the US and Russia relations. It would have been a real disaster for the company if Master Card had not reached a deal with Russia. After the US sanctions on Russia, the Russian’s were almost about to impose a ban on the company, which however was avoided as the company made a deal with the Russian Government that all its monetary transactions will channel through the Russian Central bank. The benefits are mutual for both.

The first important factor that can affect MasterCard (NYSE:MA) is the cross border deals. Such transactions have a very high margin. The customers who can use the same MasterCard all over the globe come as a great benefit to the company, for the company does not have to keep separate records for each card. Moreover, the company also gets to charge a higher price.

The chief executive officer of the company, Ajay Banga, mentioned in MasterCard’s recent conference that the company plans on doubling its efforts in order to increase the cross border volumes.

It is important to note here that MasterCard (NYSE:MA) has already entered into a partnership with Transforex. Transforex is a Chinese company that is working with as many as 7 leading tax firms of the country in order to launch the biggest tax refund project in China.  The new platform that Transforex is planning on launching will make the tax refund programs and processes much easier, enabling the Chinese travelers to claim their tax refunds and get them transferred to their MasterCard. And the interesting thing is that this all can be done within the comfort of their homes.

The second issue that the management discussed was about surcharges. This has been in the news that in Australia, the surcharge that the customers have to pay for each of their transactions has been increased. Where this increase in surcharge insulates the sellers to bear the cost of small transactions, it also discourages the customers to use their cards in situations where they otherwise would have used them.

The CEO of the company does not think that this will be a problem for the company. According to him, people get surcharged in a lot of online transactions, and this has always been an issue with online payments.

Another issue that the management discussed was of Chase. Chase, the biggest card issuer of the company, is leaving MasterCard and it will join Visa. The CEO of the company commented that this situation will prevail till 2015.

The company’s domestic numbers will be affected by the departure of Chase. However, MasterCard is optimistic about its growth and future. The company saw an increase of 7 percent in the domestic business in the most recent of its quarters, and it is determined to take the numbers even higher.

Coming to the stock prices of MasterCard (NYSE:MA), the company, during the recent trading session of November 6, 2014, started its stocks at a price of $86 and closed at a decreased price of $85.75. The intraday range for the company’s stocks was recorded to be around $85.49 to $86.38. As far as the market capitalization of MasterCard (NYSE:MA) is concerned, the figures are reported to be at $99.32 billion.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) was able to launch its iPhones last week even with all the ups and downs of criticism the company had to face the previous weeks, both its iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are larger in size with a thinner width of 7mm.

As Tim Cook predicted, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) will and all its current phone offerings cost more than $300 and people are no longer switching to the larger iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. The new growth wave is coming from the cheaper phone pfferings available in the market. With all these upgrades analysts predict that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) may go head to head with Samsung (KRX:005930) this Christmas regarding sales leadership of its smartphones and come out the winner.

Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) smartwatch has been pricier than what others are offering in the same category but with its differentiating factor targeting the rich, its bound to make a lot of profits. The same thing happened with the iPad somewhere around 2010 thus making a category for itself in a market where nothing existed like its sort before.

Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) mobile payments have been in the market for several years with Google Wallet however, it hasn’t gained much attention in the past. But the security breaches at various retailers like Target (NYSE:TGT) and Home Depot (NYSE:HD) caused the US retailers and banks to adopt a different measure of dealing with credit cards and introduced a chip and pin system for payment functionality. POS terminals will have to be adopted in order to fix the security concerns.

Now iPhone 6 is being promoted with this added feature already with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) negotiating with MasterCard (NYSE:MA), Amex (NYSE:AXP) and Visa (NYSE:V) regarding lower fee payments on every iPhone transaction. The payments will generate a one-time only temp code validated by a fingerprint reader and this won’t give much leverage to hackers.

One perk of an iPhone is the enhanced privacy measures as the company will not record any data on these transactions, including amounts and names of who they bought from etc. This is an excellent little perk where the environment is full of surveillance and keeping track of the customer movements, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) will be giving the user full privacy.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is in the market to stay with its constant improvements and extensive ecosystem of various app makers. They create Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) applications first and Android afterwards, even though Android users are much more where numbers are concerned. This is only because of customer loyalty which Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) users profess, even though the numbers have been decreasing slightly.

Hence Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) gets a bigger chunk of market share over Android through a premium as it simply rejects selling to the cheaper market.

On Wednesday, after the new iPhone 6 and smartwatch were launched, the shares of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) increased by 1.3%. The Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) Watch is the first extension in Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) products, launched by the company’s CEO, Tim Cook.

About 6 contributors had increased the price mark on Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares. This mark had increased by $16 up to $116, although there can be an exceptional decline in the shares.

Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) new wireless payment service, called Apple Pay, was highly acclaimed by many people on Wall Street. At Tuesday’s launch, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray (NYSE:PJC) acknowledged the service by saying that it was the star of today’s show.

The service would make use of the Visa Inc. (NYSE:V), American Express Co or Mastercard Inc. (NYSE:MA) for the payment. The users of the new iPhone (6 or 6 plus) would be able to buy food or grocery by just tapping a button!

Other android phones like Samsung and Motorola have comparable wireless services but the payment systems, for example Google Wallet, are not strong enough to cope up with these sets.

An analyst William Blair stated that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has made a remarkable progress by introducing the mobile payment service. This has been a displeasing issue since a long time, bothering the industry in terms of consumer ownership.

Tim Cook, the Chief Executive Officer of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) after Steve Jobs, was much stressed to bring about something new from the company and launch phones with bigger screens to compete with Samsung’s ‘phablets’ – a phenomenon that caught on after the company brought out phones that were huge in size; almost to be considered as tablets.

A research done by IDC described that international market stocks of iPhones dropped from 13% to 11.7% for the June quarter. The sales of iPhones share a large amount in the company’ earnings.

The analysts from BMO Capital Markets stated that the Apple Pay service should increase the sales of the company’s products and bring profit to the final revenue.

Another analyst from Pacific Crest, Andy Hargreaves stated that it was expected from the growth of iPhone 6 to greatly affect the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) stocks. Hargreaves is the only analyst who degraded the shares since May.

After the iPad, Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iWatch is the first different product launched by the company. The iWatch is fastened to the new iPhones 6; they are to be used in combination with the phones. The watch costs $349 and it performs functions like receiving calls, receiving messages, playing music and most of all, it will be a small wallet as it also has payment services.

The iWatch will be available for sale next year in the USA. People have been giving mixed comments on the watch; some appreciating its creativity while others commenting on the poor battery life.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares were increased up to $98.18 on Wednesday. The closing amount was up by 0.38% according to Nasdaq.