What happened with AXP today?
No read yet
Uses news and trading volume to explain the day’s move and how it relates to the market.
Stop guessing. Get the call, a three-month target price, the best and worst cases, and a source for every claim.
American Express serves consumers and businesses worldwide, both issuing cards and connecting cardholders with merchants through its payment network. It processes transactions and settles payments to merchants, retaining a fee from the amount owed to them. These merchant fees are its largest revenue source. Cardholders also pay interest on outstanding loans and annual membership fees on many cards. Other financial institutions issue American Express-branded cards and bring merchants onto its network.
Rewards, travel and dining benefits help attract and retain customers and encourage spending, which generates more merchant fees. Partners help provide and fund these benefits. Delta is its largest strategic partner: Delta cobranded cards account for a substantial share of card spending and lending, and the airline also supplies rewards and travel benefits.
American Express generally pays merchants before cardholders repay it, using deposits and borrowing to fund the gap and outstanding loans. The business therefore depends on continued card spending, merchant acceptance and customers’ ability to repay. Banking rules require it to maintain capital and liquidity; failure to meet those requirements can restrict business expansion. Local laws also limit the merchant-contract protections it can enforce against surcharges and steering customers toward other payment methods.
The risk section is the longest, dullest part of the filing. This keeps only what can really hurt you: where it hits, how hard, when it plays out.
Every company claims an edge. Each one is checked against hard numbers like margins and returns: which hold, and which line gives way first.
Capital One competes with American Express for consumer and small-business card borrowing and, through its acquired payment network, for card transactions. Watch its card lending and international merchant acceptance: they show competition for borrowers and for places where customers can pay.
Visa competes with American Express for payment volume and merchant acceptance worldwide, connecting shoppers, sellers and the financial institutions that handle their payments. Its payment volume and merchant reach show the scale of the rival network American Express faces.
Mastercard competes with American Express to carry consumer and business card payments worldwide; it connects card-issuing banks with the institutions that handle merchants’ payments, rather than lending to cardholders itself. Its consumer and commercial card payment volumes help track this network rivalry, separately from American Express’s lending business.
JPMorgan Chase competes with American Express for rewards-card customers, including through their respective Marriott Bonvoy cards in the United States. Watch those card offerings as a concrete contest for the customers American Express seeks to retain with travel benefits.
American Express relies on Delta, its largest strategic partner, for miles and travel benefits for its biggest cobrand portfolio; Delta also buys its corporate payment services. Watch Delta’s revenue from the partnership, tied to broader consumer spending: the portfolio accounted for approximately 13% of American Express’s worldwide billed business and 21% of worldwide Card Member loans as of December 31, 2025.
Citigroup competes with American Express for consumer credit-card customers and branded card partnerships. Its consumer card business is the relevant overlap, rather than its services for corporate and institutional clients.
Synchrony Financial competes with American Express for branded card partners and consumers’ purchases and borrowing, providing credit through retailers and other partners largely in the United States. Its financed purchase volume and card loans offer a view of spending and borrowing in that competing customer base.
PayPal competes with American Express to handle payments between consumers and merchants, earning most of its revenue from transaction and related service fees. Its processed payment activity and transaction revenue show the competition American Express faces from digital payments.
U.S. Bancorp competes with American Express by issuing consumer and corporate cards and handling payments for merchants. Watch its Payment Services business, which brings those overlapping card and merchant-processing activities together.
Bank of America competes with American Express for consumers’ credit-card purchases and balances carried from month to month. Its consumer card business is the part to watch for this rivalry, rather than its investment and corporate banking operations.
American Express gets hotel loyalty benefits for its Bonvoy cards from Marriott International, which licenses the card programs and receives payments linked to card use. Watch Marriott’s card-agreement payments: they connect card spending with funding for its loyalty program, rather than just hotel stays.
American Express relies on Hilton for hotel loyalty benefits on its Hilton cobrand cards, linking both businesses to card spending and hotel demand.
Capital One Financial earningsCOF
Capital One's report will show how its card lending and merchant acceptance are changing, giving a read on its competition with American Express for borrowers and places to pay.
Read Capital One's card lending alongside credit losses, then look at its merchant acceptance. Lending growth with steady losses and broader acceptance would suggest it is competing harder for borrowers and card transactions, adding pressure on American Express; slower lending, rising losses or weaker acceptance would point to less pressure. The two companies have different customers and business mixes, so these figures show the direction of competition, not a substitute for American Express's own results.
American Express Company earningsThis company
American Express earns merchant fees, card fees and loan interest from card use, and this report will show whether spending growth is turning into revenue without bringing higher credit losses.
Read billed business—the amount spent on American Express cards—alongside discount revenue, the fees merchants pay to accept them. If both grow, more spending is reaching the company as revenue; if spending grows faster, merchant rates or the mix of transactions may be limiting how much American Express earns from it. Then compare net interest income with credit losses: rising interest income without a matching rise in losses points to healthier loan growth, while faster-rising losses show that growth is becoming more costly. The conclusion is whether American Express is converting spending and borrowing into revenue without credit risk eating into the gains.
VISA Inc. earningsV
Visa's report will show how its payment volume and merchant reach are changing, offering a read on the network competition American Express faces.
Read Visa's payment volume alongside its merchant reach. Growth in both means more transactions are moving across Visa's network and more merchants accept it, strengthening the rival network American Express competes with; slower growth would mean less expansion pressure. Visa mainly connects card issuers and merchants, while American Express also issues cards and lends, so Visa's growth alone cannot show that spending shifted away from American Express. The takeaway is the strength of the competing network, not a direct measure of American Express transactions.
Fed Interest Rate Decision
For American Express, the Fed’s policy rate shapes what it earns on Card Member loans and pays on deposits and debt, affecting interest income after funding costs.
Expected4.0%Last release4.0%
If it comes in above expectations
If rates rise more than expected, interest paid on repricing deposits and new debt may climb faster than loan yields, squeezing American Express’s net interest income; higher borrowing costs may also weigh on customers’ ability to repay.
If it comes in below expectations
If rates fall more than expected, lower borrowing costs may ease pressure on American Express’s deposit and debt funding, but lower loan yields may also reduce interest income.
Non Farm Payrolls (Oct)
For American Express, the monthly jobs report counts jobs added or lost, a sign of customers’ income and economic activity that can shape card spending, loan repayment and credit losses.
More jobs point to firmer income and activity, which can support American Express card spending and loan repayment; fewer jobs point to weaker spending and greater strain on repayment, with possible increases in delinquencies and write-offs.
Retail Sales MoM (Oct)
For American Express, retail sales track consumer purchases at retailers, a major source of its Goods & Services card spending and merchant discount revenue from transactions on its cards.
Higher retail sales point to stronger consumer purchases that may lift American Express card spending and merchant discount revenue; lower sales point to weaker purchases and less spending routed through its cards, which may reduce that revenue.
Delta Air Lines, Inc. earningsDAL
Delta's report can show how revenue from its American Express partnership is changing; the relationship supports American Express's largest cobrand card portfolio.
Look for any separately reported revenue from Delta's American Express partnership, apart from passenger revenue. Growth would show that the cobrand relationship remains economically meaningful to Delta and help assess whether American Express still has a strong partner for the miles and travel benefits it provides; weaker partnership revenue would put the value of the arrangement in question. Delta's revenue is not a substitute for American Express's billed business, so the conclusion is whether this key partnership remains solid, not whether card spending grew.
