Private Mortgage Insurers Bright Spot on Thursday’s MIEC

There were more losers than gainers among the member stocks of National Mortgage News’ Mortgage Industry Equity Composite as the market closed Thursday afternoon. But of the stocks that did do well, the top two belong to the troubled private mortgage insurance sector.

MGIC finished the day up over 5% from its previous close, while Radian was up 1.43%. Trading in both was heavy as MGIC had 8.4 million shares change hands, more than double its three month average volume, while Radian had 6.5 million shares trade, 50% above its three-month average volume. Bank of Hawaii was the third largest gainer, up 1.16%, according to Yahoo Finance.

Private mortgage insurers are still reeling with financial issues even though industry figures show strong volume for five months in a row.

At the other end of the table Ellie Mae was off 2.97%, while Ocwen was off 2.95%. PHH was down 1.59%, while homebuilder Kaufman and Broad was off 1.23%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the day down 21 points.