UPDATE: Oppenheimer Initiates Coverage on American Express Company with Perform Rating on Near-Term Headwinds

In a report published Thursday, Oppenheimer analyst Ben Chittenden initiated coverage on American Express Company AXP with a Perform rating. In the report, Oppenheimer noted, “We are initiating coverage of American Express Co. (AXP) with a Perform rating. The stock is currently trading at ~16x 2013E EPS and ~15x 2014E EPS, and in our view, accurately bakes-in near-term expectations. The company's International Card Segment and Global Corporate Segment are facing headwinds; therefore, the US Card (USCS) and Global Network and Merchant Services (GNMS) segments need to do the heavy lifting for additional earnings upside. The good news is that these two segments represent about 80% of AXP's pre-tax earnings. The bad news is we don't envision a scenario where US Cards' (50%) fundamentals rapidly improve without a pickup in spending. For the time being we prefer DFS.” American Express Company closed on Thursday at $74.72.