Citigroup's consumer unit ailing too

Somewhat lost amid the news about the Citigroup's huge loss, its sovereign wealth injection, and CDO/SIV woes was the news about its consumer unit. Once the citadel of a mighty Citigroup--it accounted for up to 40 percent of earnings recently--the consumer unit is now feeling the heat from the credit market meltdown. The bank will set aside $5.1 billion to cover loan losses and possible higher delinquencies on credit cards and auto loans, MarketWatch notes. People once said that the consumer business gave Citigroup a valuable source of stable earnings, allowing it to attack other markets. So this is really tough news. Bad news on top of bad news. It is certainly taking aggressive steps to limit its consumer credit exposure. We'll see if this is too little too late.  

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- here's a MarketWatch article