NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) April 19, 2013--Standard&Poor's Ratings Services today said its ratings and outlook on Capital One Financial Corp. (COF; BBB/Negative/--) are unaffected by the company's good first-quarter results, which were in line with our expectations. The company posted pretax earnings of $1.6 billion, compared with $1.2 billion in the previous quarter and $1.8 billion in first-quarter 2012. First-quarter earnings reflected lower interest expense, primarily arising from the redemption of $3.6 billion in high-coupon trust preferred securities (TruPS), reduced credit provisioning and noninterest expenses, and the company's decision to sell off its Best Buy partnership portfolio. The net interest margin (NIM) expanded 19 basis points (bps) from the fourth quarter to 6.71%, benefiting from the TruPS
