Financial Winners & Losers: Citi, Lehman

In fact, a triumvirate of embattled financial firms in recovery mode that had rallied earlier in the week ran into a more pessimistic market to close the five-days trading period on Friday. AIG(AIG) joined Citi and Bank of America in running out of steam on Friday, with AIG shares declining 3%, or $1.08, to $34.05 late on Friday afternoon.

Friday was a day on which Lehman Brothers former head honcho Richard Fuld was judged as "negligent" in his management. Yet it was a relatively ambivalent day of trading sentiment on the financial sector overall, with the financial sector down less than half a percentage point late on Friday afternoon. Most of the big financial firms, which had not rallied to the extent of the triumvirate of Citi, AIG and Bank of America, hovered near flat share value to close the week.

Goldman Sachs(GS) was up less than a percentage point late on Friday afternoon, while Morgan Stanley(MS) was down less than half of one percent in late trading.

After a three-day climb of 2% in the financial sector between Tuesday and Thursday -- a rally that mirrored the rise of the S&P 500 Index -- financials gave back some of the week's rally on Friday, up 1.1% for the week by the final hour of trading on Friday afternoon.

-- Reported by Eric Rosenbaum in New York.

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