Thursday's Financial Winners & Losers: T. Rowe Price
T. Rowe Price (TROW) - Get Report reported a solid quarter Thursday as other financials also came up strong.
T. Rowe's profit jumped 6% in the first quarter, driving shares up $6.36, or 11.8%, to $60.24. Other investment banks shot up but not based on earnings. Instead, the movement stemmed from a report by an analyst suggesting that the problems in capital markets were reaching an end.
Merrill Lynch
( MER) jumped $3.18 to $48.09,
Lehman Brothers
( LEH) increased $2.69 to $46.38 and
Jefferies Group
(JEF) - Get Report
rose $2.11 to $16.89.
World Acceptance Corp.
(WRLD) - Get Report
, a midsized consumer finance company, rose $4.65 to $35.10 after reporting that its quarterly profits came in above analysts' expectations. Income jumped 16% on an increase in demand for the company's tax preparation services.
In other earnings news,
Barclays
(BCS) - Get Report
, the third-largest bank in the U.K., managed to avoid the huge losses recorded by
UBS
and
Credit Suisse
, but its profits were well below last year's. The bank began the day trading in negative territory, only to recover halfway through and move up to $36.74 a gain of 64 cents.
The NYSE Financial Sector index charged ahead 165.26 to 7,641.
But it wasn't so positive over at
Sovereign Bancorp
( SOV), which got a credit rating downgrade by Moody's as a result of first-quarter losses. Additionally, a Friedman Billings Ramsey analyst cut his estimates and price target from $8 to $6. The stock crumbled 10.3% to $7.14.
Reinsurance company
Transatlantic Holdings
( TRH) saw its profits climb, but its shares fell when it missed Wall Street forecasts. Profit grew 8% due to an absence of significant claims for catastrophes, but shares fell $1.10 to $65.50.
Another bank got rocked by the mortgage meltdown.
Virginia Commerce
(VCBI)
saw its net income plunge 36% from a year ago. Nonperforming assets and overdue loans ballooned in the quarter to $25.2 million from $3.9 million a year ago. The stock sold off 16% to $7.49.