Discover Sees Earnings Fall
June 18, 2009 by Stephen Kersey
Filed under Business
In its fiscal second quarter, Discover saw its earnings fall more than $20 million compared to this time last year. In 2008’s fiscal second quarter, Discover earned $234 million. This year, the earnings dropped to about $209 million.
And really, that number is much better than reality considering that Discover got almost a half billion dollars from a lawsuit settlement. Without that settlement, Discover would have been in the red.
That said, investors were seemingly happy with the news from Discover. Shares for Discover jumped about 4% to about $9.30.
Why is Discover struggling? Most analysts agree that the economy and the resulting job losses are to blame. People around the nation just aren’t able to pay their credit card bills, which is resulting in a number of delinquencies and defaults. Most experts agree that credit card companies won’t see improvements as long as the unemployment rate is hovering around 10%.
Discover (Image: Flickr)
