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Published April 15, 2008 at 5:41 PM
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 What started as a murky day on Wall Street with the announcement of the long-anticipated merger between Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp. ended up to be a mild run into green territory. The airline merger, which was received poorly by the Street, wasn't the only industry of concern. Investors were also mulling the prospects of stocks in the ailing financial sector as a group of banks announced earnings that were mixed at best. One Deal Stock, in particular, Washington Mutual Inc. [WM], showed its weakness after Tuesday market close announcing a $1.14 billion loss in its first-quarter earnings announcement. Overall, the Dow traded up 60.41, or 0.49%, to 12,362.47 while the Nasdaq rose 10.22, or 0.47%, to 2,286.04. However, the WaMu loss is likely to weigh down trading Wednesday morning. Here's a look of the performance of Deal Stocks on Tuesday:
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- WaMu finished up slightly but after market close the Seattle thrift delivered first-quarter earnings that resulted in a quarterly loss of $1.40 per share, equaling analyst expectations. Overall, the thrift has lost $3.01 billion in the six months ended March 31. The reverberation of the demoralizing results resulted in the resignation of Mary Pugh, a director who chaired its finance committee, and had been targeted by activist investor CtW Investment Group. More changes in the top may happen as WaMu said it would cut 3,000 jobs.
- There was no love for the airline industry Tuesday. The proposed merger of Delta [DAL] and Northwest [NWA] finally came to fruition. But investors shunned the deal, abandoning the stock in Tuesday trading. Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's said that if the merger should be finalized the combined company would either have a B or B+ rating. Meanwhile, the Delta-Northwest hookup prompted the re-emergence of a Continental Airlines Inc. [CAL] and UAL Corp. [UAUA] merger to create a competing giant airliner. Their stocks declined 6.99% and 5.46%, respectively
- Gerald Magpily
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