EFX Equifax Inc

By Gunjan Banerji 

Capital One Financial Corp.'s shares suffered their worst day in more than six months after the company revealed a sprawling data breach.

The bank's shares fell 5.9%, their largest percentage decline since Jan. 23., according to Dow Jones Market Data. At their low on Tuesday, Capital One shares were down about 7.9%, which would have been their worst day since 2015.

The fifth largest U.S. credit-card issuer said Monday that a hacker accessed the personal information of approximately 106 million card customers and applicants, one of the largest-ever data breaches of a big bank.

Recent history shows that it can be hard for companies to recover from these incidents.

Equifax Inc. said in September 2017 that hackers gained access to some of its systems.

Its share price has still not recovered to its two-year high of $146.26, hit in August 2017 before the breach was revealed, FactSet data show. Equifax stock fell 1.1% on Tuesday to $141.21 in recent trading.

The financials sector in the S&P 500 also took a hit on Tuesday, falling 0.6%. Banks tend to fare better when interest rates are rising, and investors are girding for the Federal Reserve to cut rates for the first time in about a decade when it meets this week.

Write to Gunjan Banerji at Gunjan.Banerji@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 30, 2019 17:01 ET (21:01 GMT)

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