By Daniel Shvartsman

Capital One Financial (NYSE:) sold off on Wednesday despite a positive earnings report after the close Tuesday, as sector concerns sparked by Visa’s and perhaps the opportunity to take profit held sway.

COF’s reported earnings of $6.78/share and revenue of $7.8B, both comfortably beating , with revenue up 6% year over year. The earnings growth was 34%, but came mostly from a net benefit of $342 from credit provisions as a release of loan reserves of $770M offset net charge-offs of $426M, a sign that consumers’ balance sheets remain strong.

Marketing expense grew 165% from the year-ago quarter and 50% from the two years-ago quarter, a sign of the company’s “leaning further in the marketing to drive growth and to build our franchise,” as CEO Richard Fairbank said on the company’s earnings call.

The average loan increased by 3% quarter-over-quarter to $253.1B. Net interest margin rose 46 basis points to 6.35% over the same period. In September, net charges were 1.09%, compared to 1.54% in August. There was also an increase in net interest margin of 46 basis points over the quarter, reaching 6.35%. The 30-day default rate increased from 1.79% by August to 1.93%.

COF shares have risen 55% and 108% year-to-date despite the sell-off. This is a clear sign that the U.S. has experienced a strong recovery. It also shows how heavily the market has priced in the recovery and the difficulty it will be to determine what temporary effects are from the pandemic, recovery environment, and what will endure.

Capital One trades for 5.7x trailing earnings. This number is noisy considering the fact that loan reserve releases account for a large portion of Capital One’s earnings.