Friday's Financial Winners & Losers

New York Community Bancorp(NYB) stumbled Friday after the Westbury, N.Y.-based bank was downgraded by Janney Montgomery Scott to neutral from buy. Shares fell 32 cents, or 1.93%, to $16.27.

Oriental Financial(OFG) lost ground after the Puerto Rico-based bank reported a drop in second-quarter earnings.

The company earned $1.32 million, or 5 cents a share, down from $9.4 million, or 37 cents a share, a year ago. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial were looking for earnings of 17 cents a share. Total financial assets managed and owned amounted to $7.94 billion, compared with $7.21 billion a year ago. Shares dropped 38 cents, or 3%, to $12.26 recently.

Ram Energy Resources(RAME) gained after the Tulsa, Okla.-based company said it would buy back 739,175 shares of stock from beleaguered hedge fund Amaranth.

The purchase price for the block transaction was a discount to Thursday's closing price of $4.70 a share. Amaranth lost $4 billion on a series of bad natural gas trades and has seen its assets under management cut in half over the past two weeks. Ram Energy's shares climbed 17 cents, or 3.62%, to $4.87.

First South Bancorp(FSBK) said its board declared a quarterly cash dividend of 17 cents a share, payable Oct. 27 . The current annual cash dividend rate is 68 cents a share. Shares were trading down $1.17, or 3.66%, to $30.83 recently.

Sterling Bancorp(STL) slipped after the New York-based bank said it had agreed to sell the business conducted by its Sterling Financial Services division, which includes a loan portfolio of about $132 million.

Sterling said it expects to record a one-time charge relating to the sale and estimated the net after-tax effect of the charge will amount to about $8.5 million. The company said it will record a loss for the third quarter. Shares fell $1.04, or 4.95%, to $19.96.

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