MarketWatch

Shares of Global Payments Inc. jumped in Tuesday trading after Chief Executive Jeff Sloan reiterated the company’s prior forecast despite concerns about the coronavirus that have been rattling markets in recent weeks.

The company has seen “no discernible impact” on its Europe or Americas business through early March, according to Sloan’s comments at a Wolfe Research conference Tuesday afternoon. Shares are up nearly 7% in afternoon trading. Sloan now expects a negative impact of $15 million from Asia, excluding Australia and New Zealand, but he said that Asia-Pacific represents 4% of company revenue and Global Payments anticipates that it will “absorb the $15 million revenue headwind in the first quarter from Asia Pacific in our revenue guidance.” Sloan doesn’t project any impact on earnings per share.

“We view the reaffirmed guidance and limited exposure to the coronavirus thus far as a positive,” Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analyst Steven Kwok wrote in a note to clients. Global Payments’ confidence in its outlook comes as others in the payments universe negatively revised their forecasts in recent weeks. These include PayPal Holdings Inc., Mastercard Inc., and Visa Inc.

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