Best stocks to short in the credit card sector?

See title - what, in your opinion, are the credit card companies & stocks most vulnerable to a recession?

 

Discover got a nice pop this week based on some bs earnings nonsense and their announcement that they will apply for TARP funds. Good opportunity to fade that.

I'm personally short Capital One, but not feeling all that great about it anymore.

The news is clearly out regarding the dire straits of anybody in the credit card business. I'm no longer sure what could be the catalyst to move these stocks down even more.

I'm planning on doing a serious reevaluation of my COF short to decide whether to add to it or just close it.

In the comm'l re area, I'm looking to short KIM on any bounce it gets from inaguration/BO optimism in January.

 

That's what people (including me on occasion) said about BSC, LEH, FNM, ABK, MBI, and pretty much the entire real estate sector numerous times in 2008. Each time it was wrong. Thanks for your suggestions though!

"Remember that stocks are never too high for you to begin buying or too low to begin selling." - Jesse Livermore

 

Based on the trend line, MA looks like it will pull back to $139 for a near term short.

 

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2009/01/cof-strikingly-high-fico-customers.html

These closed in loans in fact were to pretty darn strikingly high FICO customers, basically super prime customers by profile, but they certainly have a degraded a lot more quickly than the overall super prime sort of equivalent super prime credit card customer. You know, they tend to be -- a couple of things about the boom and bust market that we have seen both they tend to perform -- they are performing worse in the boom and bust market we can see that than the credit cards, and they have a higher concentration in boom and bust markets as well. ...

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Stocks to watch:

COF AXP DFS C

 

From the original date of this post to the bottom of the move 6 days later, MA pulled back from $152 to $135 before pivoting to the upside. I've found trend lines to be pretty accurate indicators.

 

American Express Cut To Sell Vs Neutral By Goldman Sachs

 

There has to be more downside in this credit card sector.

As savings dry up , more and more turn to credit cards.


MA
AXP
DFS
V