NEW YORK — American Express Co (NYSE: AXP) closed at $298.47 on Thursday, August 28, 2026, up 0.61% for the session, a result that stands apart from the broader financial sector’s soft performance on a day when Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole remarks rekindled concern about the interest rate trajectory. The gain was modest, but its independence from the session’s macro headwind carries a specific message about what investors believe American Express is and is not exposed to.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 53,559.99, down 9.45 points, with financials mixed. American Express outperformed both JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs on the day, a divergence that has played out with some regularity in 2026 as the market has refined its understanding of which financial business models are rate-sensitive in which direction. American Express is less directly exposed to net interest margin than a deposit-taking commercial bank; its revenue model leans more heavily on discount rates charged to merchants, card fees, and the spending volume of a cardholder base that skews toward higher-income households.
That cardholder profile is the defining structural advantage of the American Express franchise. The company’s cardholders carry higher average incomes, higher average spend per card, and lower delinquency rates than the broader credit card market. When consumer spending softens at the mass-market level (as it did in the first half of 2026, when lower-income cohorts reduced discretionary spending sharply in response to persistent inflation), AmEx’s premium cardholder base tends to hold firmer. Travel and entertainment spending, which is disproportionately represented in AmEx’s transaction mix, remained elevated through August as both business travel and leisure travel continued to run above 2024 levels.
The company reported second-quarter 2026 results in July that reflected this resilience. Revenue grew approximately 9% year-over-year, driven by billed business growth and card fee income from premium products including the Platinum Card and the Centurion Card. Provisions for credit losses remained below the levels that more mass-market card issuers were building, consistent with the lower delinquency rates in the premium segment.
AmEx’s closed-loop network is worth understanding as a strategic differentiator. Unlike Visa Inc or Mastercard Inc, which operate open networks and earn interchange without direct relationships with cardholders or merchants, American Express operates a closed loop; it issues the card, maintains the cardholder relationship, and processes the transaction, all within its own network. This means AmEx can monetize data from the full transaction in ways that open-network issuers cannot, offers merchants richer analytics, and retains more control over the cardholder experience. The discount rate that merchants pay AmEx has historically been higher than Visa or Mastercard interchange, which some merchants have resisted; the growing acceptance of AmEx cards globally reflects that the cardholder base’s spending power has made that premium acceptable.
The interest rate question is real but more nuanced for AmEx than for banks. Rising rates increase the cost of wholesale funding that AmEx uses to finance its loan book. But the company’s lending portfolio is smaller as a percentage of revenue than for a traditional credit card bank, and its cardholder base has a higher propensity to pay balances in full, which means the loan book itself is less exposed to credit deterioration in a high-rate environment. Warsh’s remarks at Jackson Hole on August 28 moved rate expectations higher across the board; AmEx’s ability to close the session with a modest gain despite that pressure reflects a market view that its business model is less impacted than peers.
Berkshire Hathaway’s approximately 21% stake in American Express, held since the 1990s and maintained through multiple market cycles, remains the most visible institutional confidence signal attached to the stock. Warren Buffett has described AmEx as one of Berkshire’s permanent holdings, a category he assigns to businesses with durable competitive advantages and capable management. That ownership stake creates a structural floor on the stock and attracts long-term institutional investors who follow Berkshire’s portfolio as a quality screen.
The rate environment that weighed on the broader session is also relevant to NVIDIA Corp (NVDA), which fell 3.4% on August 28 despite strong underlying AI demand, illustrating how the same Warsh comments produced sharply different outcomes across different parts of the equity market depending on interest rate sensitivity and growth expectations.
The next significant catalyst for American Express is the third-quarter earnings release, expected in mid-October 2026. The key metrics to watch will be billed business growth, card fee revenue, net card additions in the premium segment, and credit quality statistics. The company has guided for high single-digit revenue growth for 2026; any revision to that guidance in either direction will likely move the stock more than the macro backdrop on the day of release. For an extended analysis of the August 28 session context, see the AMZN stock today breakdown covering how Amazon’s AWS GPU announcement shaped the session’s technology-versus-financial split.
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