CNA Financial Keeps Dragging on Loews

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- CNA Financial(CNA Quote) continues to rot the quarterly results of its parent company, Loews(L Quote).

On Monday, Loews badly missed Wall Street targets with its second-quarter earnings, largely because CNA holds mortgage-backed securities that continue to decline in value. Loews, which owns 90% of CNA, said investment losses at the property-and-casualty insurer cost it $178 million in the second quarter.

Overall, Loews said it earned $340M, or 78 cents a share, in the period. Analysts were looking for 98 cents a share.

A year ago, boosted by a huge gain from the sale of its Lorillard cigarette business, Loews posted earnings of $4.96 billion, or $9.54 a share.

On its top line, Loews' revenue came in at $3.5 billion, down 10% from the year-ago period's $3.92 billion.

Investors pushed shares of the company higher Monday nonetheless. The stock was trading in morning action at $31.33, up 4%, on volume of about 700,000 shares. Average daily turnover is 3.7 million.

CNA also released results Monday, posting profit of $105 million, or 27 cents a share, down from last year's $181 million, or 67 cents a share. Investment losses ballooned to nearly $200 million from the year-ago quarter's $71 million.

CNA shares were also riding high Monday, gaining more than 12% to $19.18, on heavy volume.

Loews, based in New York, also owns large chunks of Diamond Offshore Drilling(DO Quote) and Boardwalk Pipeline Partners(BWP Quote). Last week, Diamond said its earnings in the second quarter were down nearly 7% from the year-earlier period.

-- Reported by Scott Eden in New York.