Not a good day for those looking for green shoots with markets down strongly. And no wonder. Credit card problems with the U.S. consumer are off the hook as CapitalOne (NYSE: COF) charge-offs rose to their highest historical level of 9.91% (via ZeroHedge) and American Express (NYSE: AXP) rose to 10% (via Mish Shedlock).

Higher chargeoffs and retracting credit means further consumer spending retraction. A semi-annual survey by Collier Capital found that 20% of institutional investors plan to downsize their target allocation to private equity, (via PEHub) the largest negative response since the survey started in 2004. An article by two Harvard University economists found that the biggest reason for the growing income inequality is lagging educational improvement in the American workforce (via VoxEU). There is no quick fix for this so its fairly bad news (although better than blaming the inequality on globalization and some neo-capitalist cabal).

Alex Salkever is Director of Research at Piqqem.com, a stock analysis site powered by the Wisdom of Crowds.

We saw at least five directional changes throughout the day in the stock market, so the close still left people wondering what the day really was. The housing data was weaker than expected, and today marked the first day that the VIX went under 30. Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,476.36 -27.72 (-0.33%)
S&P 500 908.34 -1.37 (-0.15%)
Nasdaq 1,734.54 +2.18 (0.13%)

Top Analyst Calls

Small biz credit card issuer Advanta (NAS: ADVNA) will shut down accounts to preserve capital and will stop lending June 10, according to Bloomberg. The company has 1 million customers that could be left without credit cards, yet another blow for small businesses suffocating without sufficient credit lines. Shares tumbled 24% on the news to less than a dollar per issue.

Today was a light economic day, and the tone was essentially nothing but profit taking the whole day. The markets opened weak and stayed weak all day, except in technology stocks on NASDAQ. Banks were the big losers today on waves and waves of financial firms doing dilutive capital raises.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 8,421.08 -153.57 (-1.79%)
S&P 500 909.60 -19.63 (-2.11%)
Nasdaq 1,731.24 -7.76 (-0.45%)

Top Analyst Upgrades
Top Analyst Downgrades

Is there a safe bank stock in this market? Well, given the unprecedented losses on mortgages and mortgage-related assets stemming from the leveraging bubble's excesses: no there isn't. But some banks do offer opportunities for investors who can tolerate high risk, and Capital One Financial (NYSE: COF) in one of these.

In general, analysts expect the rate of growth Capital One's loan delinquencies and charge-offs to slow. Further, COF has passed the U.S. Treasury's stress test and will not be required to raise new capital.

Visa (NYSE: V), whose colleagues include American Express (NYSE: AXP), MasterCard (NYSE: MA), and Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS), reported a Q2 profit on Wednesday that was surprisingly strong. On an adjusted basis, earnings came in at 73 cents per share. Analysts were banking on only 64 cents per share, according to Reuters.

Quite frankly, I can see the disparity between Wall Street's thinking and the ultimate reality. I mean, the economy has been bad (to state the obvious), and people aren't spending as much. This means that they aren't using their credit cards like they used to. Ergo, you might expect Visa to post a lower number.

Obama has definitely walked into office with a lot of things on his plate, and consumer credit debt has to be one of the top priorities.

As a society, Americans are pretty deep in credit card debt, and once you fall even one payment behind, you are asking for big trouble. While the current recession has led to banks bringing in fewer dollars, it has also been a golden chance for them to be abusive to loyal customers.

In the wake of the last five weeks' irrational exuberance its time to get real again. Via the Zack's investment blog, real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield reports office vacancies continue to rise around the country (out of 31 markets tracked, only one, Dallas, saw reduced vacancy). FT's Alphaville blog points out that CDS spreads for U.S. banks markedly widened on Tuesday, underscoring investor anxiety.

Today's late-day rally had a common theme throughout the day: less-bad economic data. This went from better housing data and CPI not showing any deflation fears. The Beige Book was also showing that some of the 12 Fed regions are seeing a decline in the slowdown. Here are today's unofficial closing levels, which were essentially around the highs of the day:

Dow 8,029.62 +109.44 (1.38%)
S&P 500 852.06 +10.56 (1.25%)
Nasdaq 1,626.80 +1.08 (0.07%)

Top 10 Analyst Calls

In his The Ticker Tape Digest, technician Leo Fasciocco looks for stocks that have broken out of basing patterns; his latest breakout stock is credit card processing firm Visa (NYSE: V).

"Visa manages a group of global payment card brands. It licenses them to financial institutions that issue cards to their customers. The company maintains the largest card service in the world with annual revenue of $6.5 billion.

"The stock soared after it came public. It peaked at 90 and then was swept lower with the bear market. The stock has put in what seems to be a good bottom. The key is for it to kick in an up trend. That is quite possible now, but not a given.

With "Bonus Rage" burning up the media wires, people actually seem to be forgetting about the really grim news out there. Stocks may be running up, but bonds and the credit markets show no such optimism, as the ever grim Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge points out. Since bond investors tend to be smarter than stock investors, this is an ominous warning sign in the face of the huge four day rally underway.

This morning, Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) reported grim numbers for its fourth-quarter ended January 31. Profit dropped 41% to $609 million, or 81 cents per share (two cents below analysts' estimates). In the year-ago period, the discount chain banked $1.03 billion, or $1.23 per share.

Revenue, meanwhile, dipped 1.6% to $19.02 billion (south of the Street's $19.5 billion consensus view), and same-store sales were down 5.9%. For fiscal 2008, profit dropped 22% to $2.86 per share and revenue edged 2.3% higher during the year to $62.88 billion. The stock has dropped nearly 3% in early trading and is within a chip shot of its 52-week low of $25.60.

In addition to crimped consumer spending, rising unemployment numbers and an unsettling economic landscape have created challenges for Target's credit-card business. The retailer's credit-card unit took a one-time, pre-tax loss of $135 million during the quarter as TGT had to add $245 million in reserves to cover delinquencies.

Visa (NYSE: V), the credit/debit-card arch rival of MasterCard (NYSE: MA), Discover (NYSE: DFS), and American Express (NYSE: AXP), reported earnings for the fiscal first quarter on Wednesday after the market closed. As of this writing, the stock was up well over 9% on very heavy volume. Visa beat expectations quite easily. According to the earnings preview, Visa was supposed to earn maybe $0.66 per share. On an adjusted basis, the card company took in $0.78 per diluted share. Awesome. Revenue was essentially in-line.

It is very easy to make money in this market despite the headlines. Using options to capitalize on volatility combined with a long/short strategy can result in powerful returns.

For example, taking equal positions of my Top 10 Stocks for 2009 while at the same time selling equal amounts of my Top 10 Stocks to Avoid would generate a return of more than 10% year to date.

Given that trends once in place stay in place for some time, I am quite confident that these positions will be winners throughout the year. It is not too late to set up your trades using these suggestions as a guide.

The banks are a wreck and now the pieces are beginning to fly apart, with Citigroup (NYSE: C) struggling the most and beginning to dismember itself.

Meredith Whitney, the uber-analyst who has been right about everything in banking for more than two years, said there were $2.4 trillion in asset downgrades at the end of last year by the credit agencies. This will really whack the banks' critical Tier 1 capital.

And even if you forget earnings problems, the banks will continue to have no money to lend, which will strangle businesses and the economy.

Be sure to read all 7 reasons the stock market isn't going up any time soon.

Michael Shulman is a contributor to OptionsZone.com.