, Columnist
Consumers Show Signs of Frailty
What started with car loans has begun to spread.
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If you were wondering when you should start worrying about weakening U.S. consumer credit, now is a good time.
Consumers have been defaulting on their car loans in greater numbers over the past year, and some analysts have chalked this up to overly loose lending standards in the auto industry. But now some Americans are increasingly struggling to repay their credit-card bills. This was on full display on Tuesday in Capital One’s first-quarter earnings results, which showed a much higher rate of loan losses among its credit-card unit than both its management and investors expected.