Mobile-payment stocks follow technology, not finance

Mobile-payment companies are part of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC’s technology group, rather than finance, and their stock performance this year is in keeping with their classification. The ISE Mobile Payments Index, consisting of PayPal Holdings Inc. and Square Inc. along with more traditional payment processors, has kept pace with the S&P 500 Information Technology Index and gained far more than the S&P 500 Financials Index. Many of the ISE index’s companies look like multiyear winners to Jonathan Krinsky, chief market technician at MKM Partners, who highlighted the group’s performance in a report Monday.