I'm underlining parts in the below article, because what I'm getting out of this is that mortgage affects credit cards, unemployment can affect both, and there is a lag between an economic change (e.g., unemployment) and its affects (stock declines).
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_8030307Article Last Updated: 01/21/2008 12:28:55 AM MST
Investors and analysts got an in-depth look at the credit-card problems last week when Citigroup Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. - two of the biggest U.S. issuers of plastic - issued fourth-quarter results that included billons of dollars in writedowns to cover mounting losses on credit cards and other consumer loans.
Bank of America Corp., which bought card company MBNA Corp. a few years ago, is scheduled to report results this week.
Bank profits have been pumped up in recent years by historically low levels in credit-card delinquencies and write-offs. Those levels had widely been expected to rise with the economic slowdown.
...
The banks could find themselves under more pressure in their credit-card businesses later this year, especially if December's unexpected rise in unemployment is the start of a trend. The Labor Department said this month that the December unemployment rate increased to 5 percent from 4.7 percent.
''The higher the unemployment rate goes, the more areas of potential loan losses come to the banks,'' said John Augustine, chief investment strategist in Fifth Third Bancorp's private bank. He says it could take six months for rising joblessness to sting banks with higher defaults, meaning that the coming earnings announcements likely won't reflect the economy's true condition.
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