» Discover Debuts as Public Company, Loses A Buck

July 2nd, 2007

Discover Debuts as Public Company, Loses A Buck

By Seth Harbison

Discover Financial Services today debuted on the New York Stock Exchange after its spinoff from Morgan Stanley. Trading under the ticker symbol DFS, Discover’s share price declined a dollar to $27.50 in its first full day of open trading. The broader markets were all up significantly today, increasing by about one percent on the day.

Discover is the latest “pure play” card company to go public, trailing the very successful IPO of MasterCard last year, and debuting before the much-anticipated Visa IPO later this year.

Whether Discover can mimic MasterCard’s success remains to be seen, but as a much smaller player its prospects don’t seem quite as bright. And with Visa set to hit the markets, the enthusiasm for Discover seems to so far be tepid. But despite its small market share (estimated at less than 5% of total cards issued), Discover is also known to generate large amounts of cash, making it potentially attractive to either investors or a buyout group in the future.

Most popular / best credit cards according to IndexCreditCards.com visitors:

1.

Discover® More Card - 0% APR on balance transfers for 12 months & 6 months on purchases, 5% cashback bonus in popular categories, up to 1% cashback bonus on all other purchases
2.

Chase Freedom Card - 0% Intro APR and no Annual Fee, 5% bonus cash back in popular categories , 1% cash bank on everything else
3.

Citi^® Platinum Select^® MasterCard^® - 0% on purchases & balance transfers for Up to 18 months, APR as low as 9.99% variable. $30 statement credit.
4.

Blue Cash^® from American Express - Earn up to 5% cash back on gas, groceries and drug store purchases, and up to 1.5% back on all other purchases, no annual fee, fast approval under 60 seconds
5.

Slate ^SM from Chase - 0% Intro APR, Now with Blueprint, patented fraud protection

6.

American Express® Gold Card - 10,000 American Express Membership Rewards bonus points when you use the card for at least $500 in purchases within the first 3 months.
7.

TrueEarnings® Business Card from Costco & American Express - 4% cash back for annual gas purchases up to $6,000, 3% restaurants, 2% travel, 1% everywhere else, 0% APR on purchases for first 6 months