Mortgage bank stocks mixed; North American still sliding.

Mortgage banking stocks were mixed last week amid uncertainties in the industry. The Mortgage Bankers Association stock index ended the week up slightly, at 111.90.

Waning confidence in the mortgage banking takeover boom drove some issues, notably North American Mortgage, which closed Friday with a 50-cent loss for the week, at $26.125.

North American's stock has been in a nosedive since Sept. 29, when it was selling for $34.75, around the time that Bank of America's purchase of Arbor National Mortgage was announced.

Arbor's purchase price -- about $16.375 at a time the shares were trading for $20 -- left North American shareholders with the queasy feeling that the takeover boom had been oversold.

Around the same time, rumors that Bank of Boston and NationsBank had dropped out as bidders for Noah American fueled a selloff of the mortgage company's shares.

Also last week, Resource Banchsares Mortgage Group, a South Carolina-based mortgage bank, announced third-quarter profits of $4.7 million, 40 cents per share.

This compares to a profit of $5 million, or 42 cents a share, in the year-earlier period.

The drop in earnings was driven by a decline in mortgage loan volume, mirroring the large decline in the industry as a whole.

Resource purchased $502 million of loans in the third quarter, down by 51% from the $1 billion purchased in the 1993 period.

"While we are pleased with our earnings results thus far in 1994, we continue in an environment of increasing interest rates with a resultant decrease in mortgage loan production," said Lee Shelton, the company's vice chairman.

In result, revenues declined to $10.5 million, from $12.9 million. Expenses increased to $5.5 million, from $4.8 million.

However, the company's sales of servicing slowed considerably -- to $586 million from $921 million a year earlier.

Its portfolio of mortgage loan servicing rights increased by $300 million in the quarter to $4.2 billion.

This represents a 201% increase from the level at the same time last year.

Shares of Resource Bancshares Mortgage Group closed the week down 25 cents, at $10.

In other earnings news, Arbor National announced a $5.3 million loss in its second quarter ending Aug. 31.

This compares with a gain of $2.9 million in the same period last year.

Included in the loss was $400,000 in expenses related to the company's pending sale to the BankAmerica Corp. subsidiary

[Tabular Data Omitted]

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