Friday's Winners & Losers: Ultralife Batteries

Bond insurers were headlining again today after Financial Guarantee Insurance declared its intention to split the solid parts of its business from the rotten ones -- that is, municipal bonds vs. those tied to risky structured finance securities -- according to New York state Insurance Superintendant Eric Dinallo, who made a suggestion to that effect on Capitol Hill yesterday. "We cannot allow the millions of individual Americans who invested in what was a low-risk investment lose money because of subprime excesses," Dinallo had declared yesterday. Governor Eliot Spitzer, for his part, had warned that "if we do not take action, this could be a financial tsunami that causes substantial damage throughout our economy."

FGIC's move came a day after Moody's cut its rating to A3, down six notches from the crucial triple-A rating that bond insurers must retain in order to run their collective business. Struggling rivals MBIA (MBI Quote) and Ambac (ABK Quote), the rankings of which are also in peril at the major credit-ratings agencies, remained quiet today as their shares took respective slides of 5.6% and 5%.

Also falling, Vision-Sciences (VSCI Quote) announced that it reached an agreement with Pentax, resolving pending disputes and dismissing all related legal proceedings over pricing, volume and delivery schedules for items supplied by Pentax. It's also delaying of the filing and release of its third-quarter earnings, and release of its results for the first nine months of fiscal 2008, due to the recent resignation of the company's newly-hired controller. ...