Stocks seesaw in afternoon trading
NEW YORK -- Nagging worries about banks dented some of the stock market's gains Wednesday.
The Dow traded in tandem with bank stocks for the third straight day. Banks had tumbled on Monday after Bank of America warned of further loan losses, only to jump back on Tuesday after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress that most banks were well-capitalized.
"We're starting to see a little light at the end of the tunnel," said Frank Ingarra, co-portfolio manager at Hennessy Funds, referring to some of the recent earnings data. "The challenge is I don't know how long the tunnel is."
In midafternoon trading, the Dow rose 28.67, or 0.4%, to 7,998.23.
Broader market measures rose. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 7.43, or 0.9%, to 857.51, and the Nasdaq composite index rose 25.08, or 1.5%, to 1,668.93.
Morgan Stanley fell $1.40, or 5.7%, to $23.25 after reporting it lost $578 million and reduced its dividend. The company said it was hurt in part by a deteriorating commercial real estate market. The loss to common shareholders totaled 57 cents per share for the January to March period, wider than many analysts expected.
Capital One fell 47 cents, or 3.1%, to $14.58 after it reported a first-quarter loss on increasing credit losses. The bank and credit card company also set aside more money for bad loans.
Capital One also said a measure of losses in all of its businesses likely will be higher in 2009 than the $8.6 billion it previously projected.
