Capital One slides as earnings miss, higher credit-loss provisioning, and Brex deal uncertainty weigh on sentiment

Capital One Financial (COF) is down 7.7% today. Here is some analysis on what might have caused this price movement.

Analysis: The selloff appears tied to a mix of fundamentals and event risk: a recent earnings miss alongside a jump in credit-loss provisions, plus investor uncertainty around Capital One’s planned Brex acquisition and its near-term expense/integration impact. Broader political and regulatory headlines around potential limits on credit-card pricing have also been a recurring overhang for card-heavy lenders.

Details:

Capital One reported adjusted Q4 2025 EPS of $3.86 versus Street expectations around the low-$4 range, even as revenue was roughly in line to slightly ahead.

Provision for credit losses rose to about $4.1 billion in the quarter, highlighting a more cautious stance on consumer credit trends and pressuring near-term profitability.

Capital One announced a definitive agreement to acquire Brex for about $5.15 billion (cash and stock), with closing targeted for mid-2026, which can imply incremental costs and execution risk in the near term.

This could also be partly driven by renewed sensitivity to policy headlines that would compress credit-card yields, which tends to hit issuers with large revolving-balance exposure the hardest.

Sources:

Capital One (Newsroom release), Barron’s, Financial Times

Disclaimer: This price movement analysis was generated with the help of AI. Please double-check the information provided for mistakes.

$COF Insider Trading Activity

$COF insiders have traded $COF stock on the open market 32 times in the past 6 months. Of those trades, 0 have been purchases and 32 have been sales.

Here’s a breakdown of recent trading of $COF stock by insiders over the last 6 months:

RICHARD D FAIRBANK (Chairman and CEO) has made 0 purchases and 17 sales selling 206,973 shares for an estimated $46,192,770.
NEAL BLINDE (President, Commercial Banking) sold 43,200 shares for an estimated $9,583,056
FRANK G. LAPRADE,III (Chief Enterprise Srvcs Officer) has made 0 purchases and 2 sales selling 17,840 shares for an estimated $3,961,081.
RAVI RAGHU (Pres, Software, Intl & Sm Bus) sold 13,450 shares for an estimated $3,362,500
MATTHEW W COOPER (General Counsel & Corp Secy) has made 0 purchases and 5 sales selling 10,000 shares for an estimated $2,252,680.
LIA DEAN (Pres, Banking & Prem. Products) has made 0 purchases and 3 sales selling 9,716 shares for an estimated $2,220,576.
CELIA KARAM (Pres, Retail Bank) has made 0 purchases and 3 sales selling 7,108 shares for an estimated $1,604,897.

To track insider transactions, check out Quiver Quantitative's insider trading dashboard.

$COF Hedge Fund Activity

We have seen 1,055 institutional investors add shares of $COF stock to their portfolio, and 921 decrease their positions in their most recent quarter.

Here are some of the largest recent moves:

UBS AM, A DISTINCT BUSINESS UNIT OF UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC removed 20,657,617 shares (-75.2%) from their portfolio in Q4 2025, for an estimated $5,006,580,056
VIKING GLOBAL INVESTORS LP removed 4,436,189 shares (-60.0%) from their portfolio in Q4 2025, for an estimated $1,075,154,766
DODGE & COX removed 2,944,850 shares (-24.3%) from their portfolio in Q4 2025, for an estimated $713,713,846
CAPITAL RESEARCH GLOBAL INVESTORS removed 2,538,515 shares (-30.1%) from their portfolio in Q4 2025, for an estimated $615,234,495
FMR LLC added 2,026,496 shares (+12.1%) to their portfolio in Q4 2025, for an estimated $491,141,570
ARROWSTREET CAPITAL, LIMITED PARTNERSHIP removed 1,887,957 shares (-100.0%) from their portfolio in Q3 2025, for an estimated $401,341,899
HARRIS ASSOCIATES L P added 1,800,024 shares (+19.9%) to their portfolio in Q4 2025, for an estimated $436,253,816

To track hedge funds' stock portfolios, check out Quiver Quantitative's institutional holdings dashboard.

$COF Congressional Stock Trading

Members of Congress have traded $COF stock 6 times in the past 6 months. Of those trades, 3 have been purchases and 3 have been sales.

Here’s a breakdown of recent trading of $COF stock by members of Congress over the last 6 months:

REPRESENTATIVE GILBERT RAY CISNEROS, JR. purchased up to $15,000 on 01/09.
SENATOR MARKWAYNE MULLIN has traded it 2 times. They made 2 purchases worth up to $200,000 on 12/29, 11/10 and 0 sales.
REPRESENTATIVE JULIE JOHNSON has traded it 2 times. They made 0 purchases and 2 sales worth up to $30,000 on 12/18, 11/13.
REPRESENTATIVE VAL T. HOYLE sold up to $15,000 on 09/23.

To track congressional stock trading, check out Quiver Quantitative's congressional trading dashboard.

$COF Analyst Ratings

Wall Street analysts have issued reports on $COF in the last several months. We have seen 8 firms issue buy ratings on the stock, and 0 firms issue sell ratings.

Here are some recent analyst ratings:

BTIG issued a "Buy" rating on 01/23/2026
Morgan Stanley issued a "Overweight" rating on 01/20/2026
TD Cowen issued a "Buy" rating on 01/08/2026
Barclays issued a "Overweight" rating on 01/06/2026
Citigroup issued a "Buy" rating on 12/31/2025
UBS issued a "Buy" rating on 10/07/2025
Evercore ISI Group issued a "Outperform" rating on 09/30/2025

To track analyst ratings and price targets for $COF, check out Quiver Quantitative's $COF forecast page.

$COF Price Targets

Multiple analysts have issued price targets for $COF recently. We have seen 13 analysts offer price targets for $COF in the last 6 months, with a median target of $275.0.

Here are some recent targets:

Brian Foran from Truist Securities set a target price of $275.0 on 01/27/2026
Terry Ma from Barclays set a target price of $287.0 on 01/26/2026
Vincent Caintic from BTIG set a target price of $270.0 on 01/23/2026
Jeffrey Adelson from Morgan Stanley set a target price of $300.0 on 01/20/2026
Richard Shane from JP Morgan set a target price of $256.0 on 01/12/2026
Moshe Orenbuch from TD Cowen set a target price of $290.0 on 01/08/2026
Donald Fandetti from Wells Fargo set a target price of $280.0 on 01/05/2026

This article is not financial advice. See Quiver Quantitative's disclaimers for more information. Note that there may be inaccuracies due to mistakes in ticker-mapping, and other anomalies.