Bank stocks were mixed Friday.
The nation's largest banks and superregionals rose with the market, but regionals and community banks fell. Trading was lackluster, though overall volumes jumped briefly just after the opening bell and in the last minutes of trading.
Friday's expiration of multiple options and futures did not have much impact on the bank group, said Peter McCorry, a senior trader at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc.
The American Banker index of 225 banks fell 0.4%, as did the Nasdaq bank index. The index of banks in the Standard & Poor's rose 0.3%, and the American Banker index of the top 50 banks (which includes Citigroup Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.) was unchanged.
Shares of most large banks traded in a narrow range between the gains of 0.2% for JPMorgan Chase and 0.7% for Bank of America Corp. The S&P 500 rose 0.5%.
SLM Corp. was among the day's top gainers. The Reston, Va., company, also known as Sallie Mae, said it was buying a majority interest in Arrow Financial Services. Sallie's shares rose 2.6%. Arrow rose 0.3%.
Among the session's biggest losers was Old National Bancorp. of Evansville, Ind., which dropped 2.3% after rising for three straight days.
Riggs National Corp., the troubled Washington company that agreed in July to sell itself to PNC Financial Services Group Inc. of Pittsburgh, fell 2.1%.
James E. Rohr, PNC's chairman and chief executive, appeared more defensive about the deal during a presentation at last week's Lehman Brothers conference in New York.
But Mr. McCorry said it appears the decline was related to the sale of a position of Riggs shares rather than a result of doubtful arbitrageurs.
