Financial Winners & Losers

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Wednesday's Financial Winners & Losers

Sarina Penn

The financial sector was flush with winners Wednesday as reams of upbeat earnings news kept the industry largely in step with the rest of the climbing market.

MasterCard (MA), most notably, leapt 10% to $126.35 after the credit-card company flattened first-quarter Wall Street estimates. The Purchase, N.Y., firm said it made 67% more than last year at $1.57 a share on revenue that surged 23.9% to $915 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial sought $1.16 a share on $842.37 million in revenue.

These numbers helped lift the NYSE Financial Sector Index, of which MasterCard is a component, by 75.49 points, or 0.7=8%, to 9,815.21. The KBW Bank Index, which tracks large banks, was up only 0.3% at 116.64, lagging behind the broader market.

Elsewhere, a number of insurers and health care names issued positive results, among them Molina Healthcare (MOH), shares of which shot up 10.6% to $32.84 after coming in 4 cents above Wall Street's 30-cent per-share target. Life-insurance behemoth MetLife (MET) gained 1.4% to $66.77 on a 13-cent EPS beat, and Infinity Property and Casualty (IPCC) was 12 cents ahead. Its shares jumped 10.9%, or $5.15, to $52.43.

Life insurer Lincoln National (LNC) added 1.8% to $72.05 on better-than-expected top- and bottom-line results in the first quarter, and likewise for Dollar Financial (DLLR), which jumped 8.5% to $31.14.

Commodities exchange IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) said first-quarter profits soared 142.4% from last year to 80 cents a share, or $55.6 million -- crushing analysts' 71-cent per-share estimates. Average daily volume, moreover, nearly doubled year over year to 1.2 million contracts. Shares climbed 3.5% to $127.26.

Chicago Board of Trade (BOT) meanwhile reported a 7% rise in April total volume to some 61 million contracts. In that same month, online broker TradeStation (TRAD) reported daily average revenue trades gaining 5% on last year. CBOT shares were up 1.7% to $187.58; TradeStation was up 3% at $12.21.

Among the few financial losers Wednesday was American Capital Strategies (ACAS), a Maryland-based asset manager that sank 5.5% to $45.61 after first-quarter operating income slid 4 cents from last year to 73 cents a share. Bermuda-based OneBeacon Insurance (OB) said adjusted operating income totaled 38 cents a share, which just missed first-quarter Street expectations. Shares lost 49 cents, or 2%, to $23.80.

Suffering from negative analyst research was NYSE Euronext (NYX), which slipped 0.8% to $82.69 after Banc of America slapped a sell rating on the newly merged exchange, citing concerns on the process of fully combining the two companies, among other things. And NewAlliance Bancshares (NAL) fell 2% after Friedman Billings cut the Connecticut-based bank to market perform from outperform. Shares were down 31 cents to $15.18.