Bank stocks were heavily impacted by the Bank of America Corp. take-over of FleetBoston Financial Corp. and many of the largest gainers and losers Monday were in seen either as possible deal targets or possible acquirers by investors.
"The market was up modestly but the banking sector clearly outperformed," said Bill Durand, head of trading at Swiss Reinsurance Corp.'s Fox-Pitt, Kelton Inc. "Possible buyers traded down, possible sellers up," he added.
Among the former were Comerica Inc. of Detroit and SunTrust Banks Inc. of Atlanta. The two company's stocks rose 6.9% and 5.9%, respectively. Sovereign Bancorp. closed up 5.5%, and Banknorth Group Inc. climbed 5.1%.
Monday's bigest loser was Bank of America. It's stock fell 10.1%, pulling down the index of banks in the Standard & Poor's 500, which closed down 0.2%. The American Banker index of 225 banks, however, rose 1.9%, and the S&P 500 0.2%.
Not all trading was linked to deal making, though. Bank of Hawaii rose 4.7% after reporting a third quarter profit of $36.7 million, up 21.5% from a year ago. And shares of American Express Co. closed down 1.8%. It reported a profit of $770 millon, up 12%.
