3 Things That Could Move Financial Stocks Today

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Here's the news and headlines that could move financial stocks today.

General Electric (GE) GE reported second-quarter operating earnings of $4 billion, or 38 cents a share, beating the consensus estimate of a 37-cent profit, among analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

The company's financial arm -- GE Capital -- paid the parent $3 billion in dividends during the second quarter.

GE CEO Jeff Immelt said in a statement that "GE Capital's strong operating performance and capital position allowed it to return a $3 billion dividend to the parent, and our Industrial segments delivered another quarter of double-digit organic revenue growth,"

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Morgan Stanley (MS) missed earnings estimates Thursday, reporting adjusted earnings per share of 16 cents and $6.6 billion in revenue. Analysts were expecting 29 cents in adjusted earnings per share on $7.6 billion in revenue.

Lower earnings were a result of weak trading revenue and a ratings downgrade from Moody's. Morgan Stanley had to post $6.3 billion in additional collateral from the downgrade and saw profits from continuing operations fall almost 80% from the first quarter.

The firm posted fixed income revenue of just $770 and equities trading revenue of $1.1 billion, both missing estimates and driving the weak trading results. The fall in trading revenue puts Morgan Stanley far behind competitors, which generally beat trading revenue estimates in the second quarter.

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Bank of America (BAC) could continue their slide after falling 3.59% yesterday, despite beating earnings expectations on Wednesday. The bank saw earnings of 19 cents a shares versus the 14 cents a share estimate, but suffered from a 73% jump in mortgage-related claims in the second quarter.

Currently Bank of America has $22.7 billion in outstanding mortgage-related claims, versus only $16.1 billion after the first quarter. Out of all the banks suffering from these mortgage-related claims, Bank of America has been hurt the most, mainly due to its purchase of Countrywide Financial in 2008.

Much remains murky about the ultimate losses Bank of America could suffer because of mortgages. CFO Bruce Thompson said the increase was "primarily due to claims we received from trustees that we fully anticipated at the time of the [Bank of New York Mellon Corp.] settlement a year ago and were largely reflected in the increase in reserves at that time".