Updated from 2:34 p.m. EDT
Financial stocks leapt out of the gate Thursday before cooling off around midmorning to join the lackluster major indices.
One of the biggest winners was Municipal Mortgage & Equity (MMA Quote). Shares vaulted 20.4% after CEO Michael Falcone affirmed in a conference call that the company is "not engaged in subprime or any other single-family mortgage lending activities," misconceptions about which the company assumes triggered the previous day's sharp stock-price decline. The Baltimore firm also upped its dividend by a half-cent to 52.25 cents. Shares closed up $3.67 at $21.65 to mostly recover from Wednesday's slide.
Harleysville Group (HGIC Quote), of Pennsylvania, jumped 11.5% to $32.10 on a few pieces of good news. The insurer reported a profit of 81 cents a share (excluding realized gains) in the second quarter, or a dime past analysts' mean target, as per Thomson Financial. The firm also boosted its dividend by 31.6% to 25 cents a share and added another 1.6 million shares to its stock-repurchase program. ...
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| Dow Jones | S&P 500 | NASDAQ | 10-Year Note | |
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