Financial Winners & Losers: Lehman

Lehman Brothers got a boost from the Fed and a report that it was considering a sale of its investment management unit.

Author:: Debra Borchardt
Publish date:: Aug 5, 2008 3:27 PM EDT

Financial stocks rallied Tuesday as the

Federal Reserve

left its target interest rate unchanged.

The

NYSE Financial Sector

index jumped 266.33 to 6,649.22, as the Federal Open Markets Committee, as expected, held its target rate at 2%.

Among the big winners was

Lehman Brothers

(LEH)

, which was rising 10.3% to $19.79 after

CNBC

reported that it was considering selling its entire investment management business. Previously it had been reported that Lehman was considering selling just its Neuberger Berman business.

Bond insurer

Ambac

(ABK)

was advancing 13.8% to $4.77, ahead of its earnings report on Wednesday. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the company to report a loss of 65 cents.

American International Group

(AIG) - Get Report

climbed 8.4% to $28.94 on an upgrade from UBS. The Swiss bank changed its rating to buy from neutral based on valuation. The stock has dropped 58% over the last 12 months.

Wachovia

(WB) - Get Report

shares also ticked up 9.3% to $18.70 after an RBC Capital Markets analyst wrote that he has a great deal of confidence in new CEO Robert Steel. Wachovia is struggling to find its way out of the mortgage crisis and Steel left the Treasury department in an effort to turn the bank around.

Financial services provider

Principal Financial Group

(PFG) - Get Report

shot up 9.6% to $46.01 after it reported second quarter profits that surpassed analyst forecasts. Principal suffered an $85 million loss on investments, but delivered an operating profit of $253.7 million.

On the flip side,

Fortress Investment Group

(FIG)

plunged 13.1% to $10.26 after a Citigroup analyst downgraded the stock. The rating was changed to sell from hold on concerns that fund performance would affect the capital raising efforts of the company. Flat to negative rates of return are expected at the fund.

And finally,

Unitrin

(UTR)

collapsed 15.9% to $23.33 after reporting a net loss of $2.9 million. The company provides insurance and financing for automobiles. Loss reserves were increased as repossessed cars had lowered resale value.