Monday's Financial Winners & Losers

Financial stocks slipped lower in tune with the Nasdaq Stock Market Monday as earnings season wound down in earnest, and among the losers were commodities exchange Nymex (NMX) and its 19%-owned gas-brokerage Optionable (OPBL).

Valhalla, N.Y.-based Optionable lost another 50.5% of its value after announcing that CEO Kevin Cassidy had quit Friday, following a one-two punch of bad news last week. On the heels of all this, Nymex resigned from Optionable's board in order to "avoid potential conflicts of interest" as it reviews the situation. New York-based Nymex lost 1.9% to $122.36; Optionable was recently trading at 50 cents.

Nymex helped bring down the NYSE Financial Sector Index, which lately lost 0.7% to 9,826.62, as the KBW Bank Index gave up 0.6% to 116.41.

New York Community Bancorp (NYB) slid 1.4% to $17.49 on word it agreed to buy Synergy Financial (SYNF) in a stock swap worth about $14.18 per Synergy share, or some $168.4 million. The transaction should close in the fourth quarter. Synergy lately sank 3.4% at $13.64.

Boston Private Financial (BPFH) was cut to hold from buy at Sandler O'Neill, pressuring the bank's shares down 3.3% to $29.13. Bear Stearns (BSC), based in New York, slid 1.5% to $154.12 after buying all of the shares of Bear Wagner Specialists that it doesn't already own, and additionally taking a $225 million writedown charge on the unit.

Other sliding financial stocks today included broker Jeffries (JEF), losing 4.8% to $30.51; online broker MarketAxess (MKTX), off 5.1% to $16.33; and mortgage lender Countrywide Financial (CFC), down 2.8% to $39.93.