California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona continued to take an outsize share of the blame for the foreclosure epidemic sweeping the nation.

The Mortgage Bankers Assn. reported Thursday that foreclosures were at record levels, with 1.37% of all home loans nationally starting the foreclosure process during the first quarter of the year.

While the exact impact such a bill would have on financial markets is unknown, at least one major credit card firm watcher has started to close short positions on most of his major holdings in the sector. This is especially germane as this investor, John Jacquemin, has been in the money as he rode credit card firms south.

Back in December 2008, we pointed out that Jacquemin, the head of private investment firm Mooring Capital, had been short credit card firms for close to two years, and that he signaled out Capital One, American Express ( AXP – news – people ) and Discover as firms to sell.

Since then Capital One has fallen an additional 38% and Discover is down 17.5%. American Express has gone the other way, up 25.3%. The Standard & Poor’s 500 is up 3.6% in that time.

Still, despite the off call on Amex, try not to shed too many tears for Jacquemin, as over the past two years his Intrepid Opportunities Fund is up 222%, thanks to timely bets against financials.

The Federal Reserve announced Friday that it will launch a much-awaited program in June to bolster commercial real-estate lending.

And, to help make the program more attractive to investors, the Fed will provide longer, five-year loans