Capital One poured more than $35 billion into acquiring credit card rival Discover. After a couple of lackluster quarters and a slumping stock price, CEO Richard Fairbank must now prove to investors that the deal is the game-changer that was promised. The perfect stage to do that is Tuesday evening when Club name Capital One reports second-quarter results. The first earnings beat in the past two quarters would be a good start, considering higher-then-expected expenses have contributed to the back-to-back profit misses. In all, Capital One has racked up $1.8 billion in integration expenses incurred since the Discover deal closed last May, according to a securities filing for Q1 ended on March 31. To improve investor sentiment following its Q2 release and prevent a repeat of past post-earnings stock drops, management must do more than just account for its spending — it needs to connect the dots. Capital One needs to clearly outline how these deal expenses can accelerate its broader transformation with Discover now under its belt. The Street is looking for Capital One to report EPS of $4.75 on revenue of $15.77 billion in the second quarter, according to LSEG. It’s tough to compare year-over-year results due to the complexity of the Discover integration. But those estimates would be sequential improvements over the first quarter of 2 …
