Financial Winners and Losers: Citigroup

(Updated with final stock price moves throughout, paragraph on AmEx's repurchase of warrants.)

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Financial stocks were mixed Wednesday after a weaker-than-expected report on durable goods orders had investors rotating out of industrial stocks into bank stocks, with Citigroup (C Quote) among the top performers.

The Census Bureau said June durable goods orders fell 2.5%, well below the consensus estimate of a 0.5% decline. Excluding transportation, though, the 1.1% rise was much better than economists expected. Still, industrial stocks including Caterpillar (CAT Quote) and General Electric (GE Quote) sold off on the news.

Citigroup, on the other hand, rose 8.4% to close at $3.22 after reports Sumitomo Trust & Banking agreed to buy Citigroup's Nikko Asset Management for roughly 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) in October. The Nikkei newspaper reported the deal Wednesday without saying where it got the information, according to Bloomberg. Sumitomo Trust will likely increase Nikko Asset's capital through a preferred share sale after the acquisition, the report said.

Many other bank stocks also ended Wednesday's session with gains. Bank of America (BAC Quote) was higher by 1.4% at $13.52 and Wells Fargo (WFC Quote) tacked on 0.1% to $24.54.

On the losing side, Banco Santander (STD Quote) shares fell 1.7% after the Spanish bank posted second-quarter earnings that exceeded estimates. The company said net profit dropped 4% from a year ago to 2.42 billion euros, beating analysts' expectations for a net profit of 2.18 billion euros.

Banco Santander also said it expects earnings in the second half of 2009 to be in line with the first half of the year. It also reiterated its full-year target of a net profit of 8.88 billion euros, matching last year's performance. On the downside, the bank said net loan-loss provisions in the first half of 2009 rose 60.6% to 4.6 billion euros.