BUY CREDIT BLUE-CHIPS

Credit tracker Fair Isaac is an excellent way to play the digitization of credit. The company’s credit-scoring technology currently underlies a vast majority of all credit-card issuance decisions. It’s also beginning to use artificial intelligence with psychometric and financial data to create ultra-reliable profiles of consumer behavior. Relatedly, duopoly Mastercard is a great play on the growth of e-commerce. Within a decade, Mastercard projects, machines will begin transacting digital payments as, for example, gas pumps hook up with computers in cars. Everything will share a connection with encrypted personal financial information stored in the cloud, and Mastercard is a natural gatekeeper. Both Fair Isaac and Mastercard are brisk growers with high P/Es, but they’re worth it, considering their 10-year annual returns of about 30% each. —Jon D. Markman