BB&T: Margin Guidance Loser

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- BB&T Corp. (BBT) was the loser among the largest U.S. financial companies on Thursday, with shares sliding 7% to close at $29.98.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 (SPX.X) saw slight declines, while the NASDAQ Composite index was down over 1%, after Google (GOOG) seemed to mistime its earnings release for the third-quarter.

With the press release appearing unfinished, with a note at the top reading "PENDING LARRY QUOTE," for CEO Lawrence Page, Google reported third-quarter earnings of $3.01 billion, or $9.03 a share (on a non-GAAP basis, excluding stock-based compensation expenses and merger expenses from the Motorola acquisition), missing the consensus estimate of a profit of $10.65, among analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

The Internet search giant's non-GAAP EPS declined from $3.35 billion, or $10.12 a share, in the second quarter, and $3.18 billion, or $9.72 a share, during the third quarter of 2011.

Google's shares declined 9% to $687.30, when trading was halted. PiperJaffray analyst Gene Munster -- who rates Google "Overweight," with a price target of $834 -- said that "the miss appears to be on the core search side as Google sites revenue was up 2.5% q/q after being up an average of 8% q/q the past two years," and that "in the short term (through December), we now believe shares may be more range-bound between $650 and $700 while investors wait to see improvement in Q4."

Please see TheStreet's Live Blog for coverage of Google's earnings conference call, scheduled for 4:30PM EST.

Getting back to the financials, the KBW Bank Index (I:BKX) was down 0.5% to close at 50.79, with 13 of the 24 index components showing gains.

BB&T

BB&T of Winston-Salem, N.C., reported third-quarter net income available to common shareholders of $469 million, or 66 cents a share, declining from $510 million, or 72 cents, in the second quarter, and $366 million, or 52 cents a share, during the third quarter of 2011.

The company said that the third-quarter results were reduced by merger-related charges associated with the acquisition of BankAtlantic totaling $43 million pretax, or $0.04 per diluted common share."

Following the trend for several of the large regional banks as the refinancing wave continues, BB&T's third-quarter mortgage revenue increased to $211 million, from $182 million the previous quarter, and $123 million a year earlier. However, the sequential increase in mortgage income was more than offset by a decline in insurance income, to $333 million, from $393 million in the second quarter. During the third quarter of 2011, insurance income totaled $241 million.

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