Americredit (ACF) ran smack into the tapped-out consumer Tuesday. The car lender swung to an unexpected second-quarter loss of $19 million, or 17 cents a share, from a year-ago profit of $95 million, or 74 cents a share. The Fort Worth, Texas, company said it had to build its loan losses, much as bigger lenders such as Citi (C) and Bank of America (BAC) have had to do this quarter. For its part, Americredit warned that loan charge-offs soared by more than a percentage point from year-ago levels to 6.9 percent, while accounts more than 60 days late rose to 3 percent from 2.6 percent last year. “The December quarter was challenging on many fronts, with weaker credit performance and uncertainty in the capital markets,” CEO Dan Berce said. The company cut its earnings forecast for the year ending in June by almost a dollar a share, to a range of $1.35-$1.55 a share from the previous $2.30-$2.50. The stock was halted in late action Tuesday, but it’s only fair to expect Americredit shares to skid when trading reopens this evening.

By James Ledbetter

I’m glad I’m not a public company. If I were, I could have a really good day, and still get beat up. Like I win a Pulitzer Prize, and the Street sells, thinking: “Well, he’s peaked.”

That’s kind of what’s happening to Best Buy (BBY) today. The electronics retailer posted a boffo third quarter this morning, with sales and profits both above analysts’ expectations. Net income was $228 million, up more than 50 percent from last year, which is not bad when you consider the various gloom-and-doom data haunting retailers these days. Same-store sales - a critical metric - were up nicely, and the company’s Geek Squad service business is also growing, which is important because it has higher margins than Best Buy’s overall business.

And how does Wall Street react? The stock is down about 2.75 percent as of midday. I can’t make sense of that. AP quotes a Credit Suisse analyst who’s raising his profit projections based on today’s data, and still investors are spooked. Evidently sellers are claiming that the numbers are inflated because there was an extra reporting week in November this year. To which I say: any analyst who didn’t look at the calendar and factor that into earnings projections isn’t worth the price of spreadsheet software. If Americans are continuing to buy flat-screen TVs and GPS devices, it speaks to a certain level of consumer confidence, and who cares what time of the month they make their purchases?

If Best Buy has a terrible fourth quarter I will bow to the wisdom of my superiors. But I think Best Buy had the misfortune to announce earnings on a day that Wall Street woke up on the wrong side of the credit crunch.

UPDATE: With an hour left to trade on Tuesday, BBY is having a mini-rally (along with much of the market), and is now down less than 1 percent for the day. Perhaps some investors saw it the way I did and bought? (Update to update: the stock finished Tuesday at $51.62, up almost 1 percent.) Also, Pete from Newtown, CT, makes an excellent point below which I wish I’d included: this does seem to be a classic instance of buy the rumor, sell the news.

Three big-name economists have a distinctly gloomy view of the world this morning. In the Financial Times, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers joins the crowd predicting the United States will tumble into recession under the weight of a spreading credit crunch. He says the Fed should ease rates further to stave off a deepening credit crisis, as “levels of the Fed funds rate that were neutral when the financial system was working normally are quite contractionary today.”

In the New York Times, Yale economics professor Robert Shiller warns the housing crisis is deepening. He calls for a fundamentally new approach to staving off foreclosures and keeping Americans in their homes, including changes to bankruptcy law and a rethinking of the role of institutions such as Fannie Mae (FNM). He calls the official response to the housing bust and related credit issues “anemic.”

And not to be outdone, NYU economics professor Nouriel Roubini says on his website that the 3.5% decline in American consumers’ average Black Friday spending shows that a U.S. hard landing and global slowdown are inevitable. He even calls for a stock market crash, saying, “Once the evidence of an economic hard landing is clear even to stock market investors – it is certainly clear to bond markets and to credit markets by now – you can expect a sharp fall in stock prices, a process that has already started in financial stocks, discretionary consumer stocks, retail stocks and housing related stocks.” Nothing like starting the week off on an upbeat note.

The bad news out of Starbucks (SBUX) and FedEx (FDX) has Barry Ritholtz railing about inflation again. On Thursday, Starbucks said foot traffic in U.S. stores dropped for the first time ever in the most recent quarter, as the company boosted prices to offset rising costs. Friday, FedEx cut its earnings forecasts, citing surging fuel costs and weak volume. Ritholtz wonders what other firms might be seeing the same problems and reminds us ominously that while the Fed can cut rates to its heart’s content, “there is no free lunch.”