Financial Winners and Losers: Goldman Sachs

(Updated with final price moves throughout)

Financial stocks finished sharply higher Monday ahead of a week full of earnings reports after analyst Meredith Whitney upgraded Goldman Sachs (GS Quote), offering a bullish outlook for the company.

Whitney, who gained acclaim in late 2007 while at Oppenheimer for foreseeing many of problems in the financial industry, before leaving the firm in February to start her own stock advisory group, raised Goldman to buy, from hold, with a 12-month price target of $186.

Whitney said she expects Goldman Sachs to be the key competitor in some of the unpredictable markets of government, corporate and municipal debt. She expects a "tsunami of debt issuance" from federal/sovereign, state and local governments ramping up debt issuance to fund "woefully underfunded" budget gaps. ...