NEW YORK (Reuters) - Capital One Financial Corp , a credit card issuer and banking company, on Thursday reported that third-quarter earnings from continuing operations fell 53 percent as it boosted its loan-loss allowance.
McLean, Virginia-based Capital One reported third-quarter earnings from continuing operations dropped to $385.8 million, or $1.03 per share, from $816.4 million, or $2.09 per share, a year earlier.
Net profit totaled $374.1 million, or $1.00 per share, compared with a loss of $81.6 million, or 21 cents a share, a year earlier, when the company took more than $800 million in charges from shuttering its GreenPoint Mortgage business.
The company increased its quarterly allowance for loan losses by $208.6 million to $3.5 billion, a level considered consistent with an outlook for $7.2 billion in managed charge-offs through the end of the third quarter of 2009.
Capital One once specialized in credit cards, but expanded into branch banking in recent years after acquiring Louisiana's Hibernia Corp and New York's North Fork Bancorp Inc.
Among its major card rivals are American Express Co
Capital One's shares fell 5.5 percent to $36.56 in late electronic trading from the New York Stock Exchange close of
$38.70.
The company's stock has fallen 18 percent this year on credit concerns, while the Philadelphia KBW Bank Index <.BKX> has fallen 33 percent.
(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)
