Postcards
Power Point: Look out for Main Street
May 19, 2009: 7:49 PM ET"Any effort to restore confidence in our economy must start not on Wall Street but in Main Street, and that's what the credit card situation is all about."
-- Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic Majority Leader, speaking before a Senate vote on Tuesday that put new restrictions on the credit card industry. The bill is supposed to make card terms more explicit and be fairer to customers, providing safeguards against rate increases and late fees.
The vote did not cap interest rates, so the card-issuers can continue to raise them. This is exactly what banks including American Express (AXP), Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC) are doing as they cut risky cardholders from their rosters. The banks may also look at adding other fees back in and cutting rewards programs. So while the bill may spell relief for some consumers, those who regularly pay off their card balances may lose out. Three words: no more miles. --Jessica Shambora
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Meredith Whitney on credit, Buffett, and paper routes
Bank-industry analyst Meredith Whitney, one of FORTUNE's Most Powerful Women and the subject of our cover story last summer, is all over the place this week. An op-ed, "Credit Cards are the Next Credit Crunch," in today's Wall Street Journal presents a dreadful outlook for consumer spending. She says that she's upped her estimate for how much banks will yank credit lines to consumers--by $2 trillion this year and a MORE
Patricia Sellers - Mar 10, 2009 3:45 PM ETPosted in: credit cards, economy, finance, FORTUNE MPWomen, investing, Meredith Whitney, Postcards, stock market, Wall Street, Warren Buffett -
Behind MasterCard's soaring stock
Two of the best stocks in the universe this year have been MasterCard (MA) and Visa (V). MasterCard went public in May 2006 and has rocketed from its offering price, $39 a share, to $231. That's a six-fold increase. Visa, which scored the biggest IPO in history last March, has seen its stock rise from $44 to $73.
Ironic, isn't it, that these two companies are sailing along when so many MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 13, 2008 1:00 PM ET
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Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.
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The Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership brings rising-star women from countries around the world to the U.S. for three-week mentorships with participants of the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit - among them Ursula Burns of Xerox, Laura Lang of Time Inc., Marissa Mayer of Yahoo, and Tory Burch.
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