Financial Winners & Losers: National City

National City climbs on an upgrade from Citi.
By Debra Borchardt ,

Monday provided a mixed day of trading for financial stocks, which struggled for direction amid several analyst actions.

Citigroup upgraded

National City

(NCC)

to buy from hold based on its recent capital raise. The analyst thinks the beaten-down bank will be able to weather this storm with the capital cushion the bank has built up; however, the price target remains $7. Shares of the Cleveland-based bank rose 5.6% to $5.88.

The same analyst though lowered earnings estimates for investment banks

Goldman Sachs

(GS) - Get Report

,

Lehman Brothers

(LEH)

and

Morgan Stanley

(MS) - Get Report

, citing decreased client trading among other factors. Goldman dropped $3.31, or 1.8%, to $183.83; Lehman slid $1.07, or 2.5%, to $42.57; and Morgan tumbled $1.18, or 2.5%, to $46.03.

The NYSE Financial Sector index ticked down 0.7% to 7,617.50 after having been in positive territory earlier in the day.

Mortgage lender

Fannie Mae

(FNM)

gave back 3.25 to $28.93 after announcing that it would institute a new policy on down payments for conventional loans. The new requirements will allow homeowners to apply 3% or 5% as a down payment for primary residences. Fannie Mae said it wanted to support homeowners.

E*Trade

(ETFC) - Get Report

announced that it had signed an agreement to sell its equity shares in IL&FS Investment, an India-based financial organization. The sale is expected to generate $145 million in proceeds to the electronic brokerage. Shares in E*Trade lost 6.5% to $4.03.

Another loser for the day was

CompuCredit

(CCRT)

, which ticked down 1.9% to $10.67, even though a well-known value investor made positive comments about the company. The firm provides financial services to underserved and un-banked consumers and investor Monhish Pabrai said he increased his stake in the company.

However, there were some winners for the day including

East West Bancorp

(EWBC) - Get Report

, which traded up after

Barron's

reported that the bank which focuses on the ethnic Chinese community in the U.S., is cheap following a slide of more than 70% in the past year and in light of its earnings potential in 2009. Shares of the bank were up 3.9% to $13.69.

Advanta Corp.

(ADVNB)

jumped 2.4% to $10.11 after announcing that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Advanta Business Receivables, had priced and closed $247 million of business credit card securitizations backed by receivables in a revolving business purpose credit card accounts originated by Advanta Bank. Advanta issues credit cards to small businesses.

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