Financial Winners & Losers: AIG
Financial stocks fell sharply Monday in New York as the sector gave up some of the ground it won late last week.
The Amex Securities Broker/Dealer index was dropping 9.9%, and the NYSE Financial Sector index was off 6.5%. The KBW Bank index was lower by 9.5%.
Among individual stocks,
Bank of America
(BAC)
was down 7.8%, and
Wells Fargo
(WFC)
was sliding almost 13%.
Goldman Sachs
(GS)
, which along with
Morgan Stanley
(MS)
said this weekend that it would adopt a bank holding company structure, was losing 6%.
was in positive territory, adding 2.5%.
Sandler O'Neill downgraded 22 banking companies, including Wells Fargo,
BB&T
(BBT)
,
PNC
(PNC)
and
JPMorgan Chase
(JPM)
, primarily because of "the group's extraordinary rebound, coupled with our sense that fundamentals remain extremely challenged and valuations have now gotten ahead of themselves," the firm said in an industry report.
Within the report, Sandler O'Neill detailed the effects of a potential
government bailout
, limiting
and the likely need for more capital raises by banks.
National City
(NCC)
was giving back 5.5% despite an upgrade at Goldman to buy from neutral. The firm raised its price target on National City to $7 from $5.
One of the few winners for the day was
AIG
(AIG)
, which benefited from reports that some big investors are trying to find an alternative to the current proposal by the
Federal Reserve
that would result in the government owning about 80% of the insurer. Shares of
were jumping 28%.
Citigroup
(C)
was also in the news, as
The Wall Street Journal
said that Sallie Krawcheck, who runs the bank's wealth-management division, is probably going to leave the company. The report cited people who had knowledge of the situation. Citi slipped 2.7%.
This article was written by a staff member of TheStreet.com.
