American Express is a payments company. Co. provides credit and charge cards to consumers, small businesses, mid-sized companies and corporations. Co.'s segments are: Global Consumer Services Group, which issues consumer cards and provides travel and lifestyle services and non-card financing products; Global Commercial Services, which issues corporate and small business cards and provides payment, expense management and financing solutions; and Global Merchant and Network Services, which operates a global payments network that processes and settles card transactions, acquires merchants and provides multi-channel marketing programs and capabilities, services and data analytics.
When researching a stock like American Express, many investors are the most familiar with Fundamental Analysis — looking at a company's balance sheet, earnings, revenues, and what's happening in that company's underlying business. Investors who use Fundamental Analysis to identify good stocks to buy or sell can also benefit from AXP Technical Analysis to help find a good entry or exit point. Technical Analysis is blind to the fundamentals and looks only at the trading data for AXP stock — the real life supply and demand for the stock over time — and examines that data in different ways. One of those ways is to calculate a Simpe Moving Average ("SMA") by looking back a certain number of days. One of the most popular "longer look-backs" is the AXP 200 day moving average ("AXP 200 DMA"), while one of the most popular "shorter look-backs" is the AXP 50 day moving average ("AXP 50 DMA"). A chart showing both of these popular moving averages is shown on this page for American Express. Comparing two moving averages against each other can be a useful visualization tool: by calculating the difference between the AXP 200 DMA and the AXP 50 DMA, we get a moving average convergence divergence indicator ("AXP MACD"). The AXP MACD chart, in conjunction with the chart of the moving averages, basically helps in visualizing how the moving averages are showing convergence (moving closer together), or divergence (moving farther apart). |
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Video: Technical Analysis