Winners & Losers: Downey Financial

Shares of the company are down as investors worry about a possible takeover.

Author:: Lauren LaCapra
Publish date:: Oct 1, 2008 3:14 PM EDT

Financial stocks were falling Wednesday morning, along with the broader markets, as investors continued to worry about whether the proposal to purchase up to $700 billion worth of banks' troubled assets would pass through Congress.

A report that manufacturing activity had contracted far further than expected, indicating that economic activity is rapidly slowing down, helped to push equities down as well. The NYSE Financial Sector Index was up 1.8% at 6,126.25, while the broader

Dow Jones Industrial Average

was off its low of more than 200 points, now down 0.1%, at 10,837.04.

Downey Financial

(DSL) - Get Report

fell sharply as investors continued to worry that its toxic loans may cause the bank to crumble or be bought on the cheap.

In the past few weeks, similar speculation about several banks led to stock declines and eventual collapses, government bailouts or fire-sale acquisitions.

Lehman Brothers

filed for bankruptcy in mid-September, and

Bank of America

(BAC) - Get Report

agreed to buy

Merrill Lynch

on the same day. Soon after, the government saved

American International Group

(AIG) - Get Report

from collapse with a $85 billion loan. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. then took over the troubled thrift

Washington Mutual

(WM) - Get Report

, selling its branches and deposits to

JPMorgan Chase

(JPM) - Get Report

for a mere $1.9 billion.

This week,

Citigroup

struck a similar deal to acquire

Wachovia's

(WB) - Get Report

banking assets.

But despite the sector's broad decline on Wednesday, some of the companies involved in those deals were rallying. AIG surged 16.8% to $3.89, BofA was up 7.7% at $37.72 recently, as JPMorgan gained 4% to $48.77 and Citi added 9% at $22.40.

Federal Agricultural Mortgage

surged 60% to $6.55 after the company, also known as Farmer Mac, named a new chief executive and said it would raise $65 million through a preferred stock offering. Buyers of the new shares include firms that lend to the agricultural sector, like

AgFirst

AgriBank

CoBank

Farm Credit Bank of Texas

and

U.S. AgBank

Zions Bancorp.

(ZION) - Get Report

is buying a $5 million stake.

Despite a credit-ratings cut from Moody's,

Sovereign Bancorp

( SOV) was also up 17% at $4.64. But student-loan giant

SLM

(SLM) - Get Report

, also known as Sallie Mae, was dropping 24% at $9.38, on worries that the credit crisis will hurt its lending operations. On Monday, the company named new chief credit and lending officers.