AIG: Financial Winners & Losers
NEW YORK (
) --
American International Group
(AIG) - Get American International Group, Inc. Report
was among the winners of the financial sector Wednesday after the insurer's CEO said he plans to stay at the company for two more years.
rose nearly 1% after CEO Robert Benmosche said he expects to remain with the bailed-out insurer for another year or two and will help prepare AIG for his departure. Benmosche made the remarks in a telephone interview with
Bloomberg
.
|
Benmosche will "be around for a year or two more, and then after that the question would be working with the board on how best to deal with succession," he told
Bloomberg
. "We are doing that now, as well as in the future."
AIG shares were lately up 24 cents, or 0.7%, to $36.15.
KeyCorp
TheStreet Recommends
was another top performer Wednesday after Goldman Sachs analyst Brian Foran upgraded the bank to buy from neutral and upped his price target to $10 from $7. Foran cited CD re-pricing, noting that KeyCorp has the biggest and most expensive CD book with about 2/3 of it re-pricing this year.
KeyCorp shares were jumping by 3.9% to $8.80.
Meanwhile, Goldman's Foran cited liquidity tailwinds for several estimate changes. Foran upped his 2010 and 2011 earnings targets for
Comerica
(CMA) - Get Comerica Incorporated Report
,
Hudson City Bancorp
(HCBK)
,
First Horizon
(FHN) - Get First Horizon Corporation Report
and
City National
(CYN)
.
Foran also raised stock price targets for
SunTrust Banks
(STI) - Get SunTrust Banks, Inc. Report
,
Fifth Third Bancorp
(FITB) - Get Fifth Third Bancorp Report
,
Huntington Bancshares
(HBAN) - Get Huntington Bancshares Incorporated Report
,
U.S. Bancorp
(USB) - Get U.S. Bancorp Report
,
BB&T
(BBT) - Get BB&T Corporation Report
and
Regions Financial
(RF) - Get Regions Financial Corporation Report
, among other select banks.
Among other analyst moves, Rochdale Securities analyst Dick Bove initiated coverage of
UBS
(UBS) - Get UBS Group AG Report
with a neutral rating and $18 price target. Bove says that UBS "is a great company with an excellent franchise that got itself into a surprising amount of trouble."
UBS was lately down 1.3% to $26.74.
Elsewhere,
(GS) - Get Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Report
defended its business model and its actions ahead of the 2008 financial crisis in a letter to shareholders published Wednesday.
While the letter argues Goldman's "direct exposure to AIG was minimal," it acknowledges that "Goldman Sachs and every other financial institution and company benefitted from the continued viability of AIG." Addressing criticisms that Goldman bet against mortgage products it was selling, the letter states that Goldman was merely offsetting exposures and were not a "bet against our clients."
Goldman Sachs was rising 2.1% to $176.46.
Among other U.S. bank stocks,
Morgan Stanley
(MS) - Get Morgan Stanley Report
gained 2% to $29.94,
Bank of America
(BAC) - Get Bank of America Corp Report
advanced 1% to $18.68, and
Citigroup
(C) - Get Citigroup Inc. Report
rose 0.8% to $4.32.
On the downside,
JPMorgan Chase
(JPM) - Get JPMorgan Chase & Co. Report
slid 0.7% to $45.54 and
Wells Fargo
(WFC) - Get Wells Fargo & Company Report
lost 0.5% to $32.11
-- Written by Robert Holmes in Boston
.
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