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Published April 23, 2008 at 5:48 PM
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Financial services Deal Stocks saw extreme highs and lows Wednesday
while the broader market and overall Deal Stocks were mixed in trading.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average picked up 42.99 points to close at
12,763.22 on Wednesday.
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- Safeco Corp. was in the extreme highs column,
skyrocketing 45.79% to close at $65.94 per share on news that Liberty
Mutual Group agreed on Wednesday to buy the insurer for $6.2 billion in cash, or $68.25 per share, a 51% premium to the prior day's close of $45.23.
- On the extreme lows side was bond insurer Ambac Financial Group Inc., which tumbled 42.62% to $3.46 per share. The monoline, which early last month announced a $1.5 billion stock and convertible securities offering, reported a first-quarter loss of $1.66 billion Wednesday, exceeding analysts' estimates. This compared with income of $213.3 million in the year-ago period.
- Somewhat more palatable to investors was UBS' 2.6%
decline to close at $34.46 per share. The bank's chairman Peter Kurer
dismissed any speculation in its Wednesday shareholder meeting that UBS
was considering a merger
with Deutsche Bank AG, according to a Bloomberg report. Also reported
by Bloomberg was UBS' plans to potentially cut 2,500 jobs in 2008 on
top of the 1,500 cut last year.
- Michael Rudnick
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