Capital One: Financial Winner

Capital One on Jan. 17 reported disappointing fourth-quarter results, with earnings available to common stockholders of $1.41 a share, missing the consensus estimate of $1.59. CFO Gary Perlin blamed "seasonal expense and margin trends" for the company's sequential earnings decline, but also said that "fourth quarter 2012 results give us a good picture of what to expect in terms of pre-provision earnings in 2013."

"Pre-provision earnings" refers to earnings before a bank's quarterly provision for credit losses, which is the amount of money added to loan loss reserves.

Oppenheimer analyst Chris Kotowski rates Capital One "outperform," although he said on Jan. 24 that the company "threw an air ball for the second fourth quarter in a row."

"We suspect that Street expectations are now at a level that the company will probably meet or beat," he said, "and that the stock is oversold at just 8.7 times our 2013 estimate." Kotowski estimates Capital One will earn $6.50 a share this year, with EPS increasing to $7.15 in 2014. His 12 to 18 month price target for the shares is $68.00.

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Interested in more on Capital One? See TheStreet Ratings' report card for this stock.

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-- Written by Philip van Doorn in Jupiter, Fla.

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Philip W. van Doorn is a member of TheStreet's banking and finance team, commenting on industry and regulatory trends. He previously served as the senior analyst for TheStreet.com Ratings, responsible for assigning financial strength ratings to banks and savings and loan institutions. Mr. van Doorn previously served as a loan operations officer at Riverside National Bank in Fort Pierce, Fla., and as a credit analyst at the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, where he monitored banks in New York, New Jersey and Puerto Rico. Mr. van Doorn has additional experience in the mutual fund and computer software industries. He holds a bachelor of science in business administration from Long Island University.

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