Countrywide Concerns Mount

"People really don't believe Countrywide and are clearly showing their concern," says Randy Diamond, an equity trader at Miller Tabak, in an email. "Countrywide continues to beg for deposits with the 5% [plus] deposit rates that they are maintaining, even with interest rates in decline -- they obviously need the money and the public is not fooled. I guess the public fear of bankruptcy could almost become a self-fulfilling prophecy."

The nation's largest mortgage lender is hardly alone among companies in the financial sector that have investors rattled about capital levels. Bond insurer MBIA(MBI) on Wednesday morning cut its dividend and said it would raise $1 billion. E*Trade Financial(ETFC) also said it had sold $3 billion in hard-to-price mortgage-related securities and municipal bonds as part of a restructuring, as it also sank to new lows.

Total deposits were $61 billion at the end of the quarter. Countrywide's retail deposits rose $2.3 billion in December to $33 billion, the company said.

Countrywide's business of bill collecting and loan monitoring proved once again to be a bright spot in this troubled company. Countrywide's servicing portfolio rose $5.4 billion from the end of November to $1.48 trillion.

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