AIG: Financial Winners & Losers

Financial stocks gained again on Thursday as speculation rose that banks may be able to raise their dividends.
By Maria Woehr ,

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) -- Financial stocks gained on Thursday as speculation rose that banks may be able to raise their dividends.

The

Financial Select Sector SPDR

(XLF) - Get Report

ended up 19 points at $15.62.

American International Group

(AIG) - Get Report

was the big winner of the day. The stock increased $5.56 at $47.78 on

news

that the U.S. Treasury Department is planning a large AIG stock offering in 2011. Meanwhile, AIG's

largest investor

Fairholme Capital

purchased nearly two million additional shares over the past several weeks.

Other bank winners Thursday were up on news that management was hopeful of raising dividends. Those include

Wells Fargo

(WFC) - Get Report

up 70 cents at $30.07,

,Bank of America

(BAC) - Get Report

up 65 cents at $12.65,

U.S. Bancorp

(USB) - Get Report

up 67 cents at $25.84 and

Bank of New York Mellon

(BK) - Get Report

up 22 cents at $28.98.

Another gainer was

MasterCard

(MA) - Get Report

. The stock climbed up 58 cents a share at $251.22 on

the annoucement that the credit card network

agreed to acquire Travelex's prepaid card program for $458 million in cash.

The loser of the day was

HDFC Bank Limited

(HDB) - Get Report

. The stock plummeted $19.14 to $160.78.

--Written by Maria Woehr in New York.

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Maria Woehr

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