Financial Winners and Losers: Hartford

Financial stocks were mixed Friday after six insurers were granted access to funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Author:: Robert Holmes
Publish date:: May 15, 2009 5:01 PM EDT

Financial stocks were mixed Friday after six insurers were granted access to funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Updated from 3:12 p.m. EDT

Financial stocks finished lower Friday after several insurers were granted access to funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program and Fitch Ratings warned of downgrades for nine U.S. banks.

Hartford Financial

(HIG) - Get Report

Lincoln National

(LNC) - Get Report

Allstate

(ALL) - Get Report

Prudential Financial

(PRU) - Get Report

Principal Financial

(PFG) - Get Report

and

Ameriprise Financial

(AMP) - Get Report

have been granted access to $22 billion from the TARP as the government hopes to prevent the industry from stumbling further.

Hartford said late Thursday that it has preliminary approval to receive $3.4 billion, and Lincoln said it has been granted approval for $2.5 billion. Ameriprise said Friday that it will not accept government aid, while Allstate said it would review the government's proposal.

Keefe Bruyette & Woods' analysts argued in a research note Friday that Prudential and Principal were unlikely to take TARP money because of their solid capital position.

After starting the day in positive territory, Hartford finished down 1% and Lincoln was lower by 0.7%. Prudential slipped 4.1%, Allstate shed 3.8% and Principal gave back 1.5%. Not every insurer traded down, though, as Ameriprise tacked on 1.4%.

Among other insurers,

American International Group

(AIG) - Get Report

slid 6.5%,

Conseco

(CNO) - Get Report

was off 4.9%, and

MetLife

(MET) - Get Report

sank 3.6%.

Several bank stocks were lower on comments from Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair, who indicated that management teams at several financial institutions could be replaced in the wake of the government's stress tests.

"Management needs to be evaluated," Bair told

Bloomberg Television

in an interview to be aired this weekend. "Have they been doing a good job? Are there people who can do a better job?"

The FDIC released a statement clarifying Bair's comments in the

Bloomberg

interview, saying she did not suggest the federal government will remove bank CEOs.

"The

Bloomberg

story referencing Chairman Bair's discussion of management and board changes is misleading and does not provide the proper context of her comments," the FDIC said in a statement. "Chairman Bair said that management changes could happen based on the capital plans that an institution must submit to the government. She did not refer to CEOs specifically and the comment was in the context of capital plans submitted by the institutions."

The government's stress tests, released last week, showed that

Bank of America

(BAC) - Get Report

Wells Fargo

(WFC) - Get Report

General Motors'

(GM) - Get Report

GMAC financing arm,

Citigroup

Regions Financial

(RF) - Get Report

SunTrust

(STI) - Get Report

Morgan Stanley

(MS) - Get Report

KeyCorp

(KEY) - Get Report

Fifth Third

(FITB) - Get Report

, and

PNC Financial

(PNC) - Get Report

were in need of capital infusions.

Among those names, Fifth Third dropped 5.6%, Wells Fargo slid 3.2%, Regions Financial was lower by 2.6%, KeyCorp gave back 2.2%, Citigroup was down 2%, and Morgan Stanley dipped 1.7%.

In addition to possibly having to replace management, BofA is under pressure from government officials to revamp its board by bringing in directors with more banking experience, according a report in

The Wall Street Journal

. The news comes as

Temasek Holdings said it has sold its 3.8% stake in BofA

at a loss that may total $4.6 billion, according to

Bloomberg

. BofA shares lost 5.7% to close at $10.67.

SunTrust had other issues of its own as well. The bank said Friday it will sell $1.25 billion of common stock and slash its dividend by 90% to a penny in order to meet the government's increased capital requirements. Still, shares tacked on 0.1% to $15.05.

Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings said it has placed nine U.S. banks on rating watch negative, indicating that downgrades could come if conditions worsen. The nine banks included were

BB&T

(BBT) - Get Report

, Regions, Fifth Third, KeyCorp, SunTrust, Wells Fargo,

Discover Financial

(DFS) - Get Report

M&T Bank

(MTB) - Get Report

and

Popular

(BPOP) - Get Report

One of few winners Friday was

Barclays