Capital One Shares Slide 40 Percent.

Byline: Bob Rayner

Jul. 18--Capital One Financial Corp., the Richmond area's largest private employer, got clobbered on Wall Street yesterday.

The credit card company's stock plunged 40 percent, erasing $4.4 billion of market value in one day.

Investors dumped the Falls Church-based company's shares after it announced an informal agreement with federal regulators concerned about Capital One's highest-risk customers.

In the voluntary agreement, which was released after the markets closed Tuesday, Capital One agreed to increase its reserves for bad loans and to improve its internal information controls.

At the same time, the company reported a 37 percent increase in …