Shares of Visa Inc. were off 1.2% in Monday morning trading and on track to log their 10th straight session of declines, which would make for Visa’s longest losing streak on record, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The stock has lost 12.0% over the recent 10-session stretch. Shares of Mastercard Inc. , down 0.8% Monday, are on pace to log their eighth-straight session of declines, which would mark their longest losing streak since a 10-session stretch that ended Jan. 15, 2008. The recent declines come amid broader concerns about the economy, though Visa has recently maintained that it’s seeing strong spending trends, with Chief Financial Officer Vasant Prabhu telling investors at a recent conference that “consumer spending has been remarkably stable” even as “consumer confidence has been severely damaged in the U.S.” Executives from Visa and other payments companies said earlier in the year that inflation historically benefited their businesses. “While inflation generally is very good for payments companies who price in bps [basis points] based on the average ticket price, our concern currently is twofold,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Daniel Perlin wrote in a general note on the payments industry Sunday. “First, as inflation pushes consumer prices higher, there comes a point where overall consumption begins to be crowded out, thus resulting in slower transaction growth. Second, once inflation peaks, which may or may not be soon, nominal payment volumes will likely revert to transaction growth rates, thus resulting in a slowdown in payment volumes.”
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