Sector Wrap: Regional banks rise on profit reports

Regional bank stocks closed mostly higher Thursday after a spate of better-than-expected second-quarter results from financial firms, including JPMorgan Chase, helped lift the sector for a second day in a row.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. posted a 53 percent decline in its quarterly earnings, but the drop wasn't as steep as Wall Street had feared, sending the shares up as high as 14 percent during regular trading.

Pittsburgh-based regional bank PNC Financial Services Group Inc. reported a 19 percent jump in earnings, fueled by solid loan growth. Shares gained $7.84, or 13.5 percent, to close at $65.75.

BB&T Corp. also had good news to share. A 7 percent dip in its second-quarter earnings was not as bad as analysts had anticipated. Shares rose $3.13, or 13 percent, to finish at $27.63.

Other gainers included KeyCorp, which rose $1.03, or 11 percent, to $10.77, and Zions Bancorp, which gained $3.97, or 17 percent, to end at $27.51.

Marshall & Ilsley Corp., which reported second-quarter results above expectations on Wednesday, gained 92 cents, or 7 percent, to $14.52.

First Horizon National Corp. advanced 72 cents, or 10 percent, to close at $8.22.

Bucking the trend, National City Corp. shares fell 18 cents to finish at $4.22.

Comment (0)
Recommended (0)

Comments from our Foolish Readers

Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment Report this Comment icon found on every comment.

Be the first one to comment on this article.

Report This Comment

Use this area to report a comment that you believe is in violation of the community guidelines. Our team will review the entry and take any appropriate action.

Sending report...

Compare Brokers

TD AMERITRADE
more info
ShareBuilder
more info
Power E*Trade

more info
Scottrade
more info
Fool Disclosure

DocumentId: 687265, ~/articles/articlehandler.aspx, 10/8/2008 6:24:05 AM,

Sign up for FREE Motley Fool site access!

Already registered? Login Here

It’s FREE! Enter your email address, and we’ll rush you to the article you're looking for right now.

Privacy / Legal Information

We will use your email address only to keep you informed about updates to our web site and about other products and services that we think might interest you. The Motley Fool respects your privacy. Please read our Privacy Statement

.

Related Tickers

BB&T Corp

BBT Down! $33.89 -1.72 (-4.83%) 4:03 PM
CAPS Rating:
451 Outperforms
89 Underperforms
Rate This Stock

Major Indices

S&P 500996.23 -5.74%
DJIA9,447.11 -5.11%
NASD1,754.88 -5.80%
Updated: 4:30:19 PM
Sponsored by:

The Motley Poll

What do you think will be the best performing sector over the next six months?

Sponsored by: