Countrywide Down 11% as Stocks Stumble

Weak earnings from Countrywide Financial Corp. have sparked renewed concern about the housing sector, helping fuel a widespread selloff in the stock market.Countrywide, which reported earnings that missed Wall Street's consensus estimate and were down sharply from year-earlier levels, led the stock downturn among mortgage stocks. Countrywide's share price fell $3.73, or almost 11%, in trading on July 24. But the biggest decline came at subprime shop Accredited Home Lenders, where the share price fell $1.95, or 15%. News reports attributed the drop to concern about whether Accredited's deal to be acquired by a private equity firm will be completed. Another subprime lender, Delta Financial Corp., saw its stock price fall 10% for the day. Mortgage insurance stocks also were hard hit, with Triad Guaranty, PMI, Radian, and MGIC all seeing their share prices fall more than 6% on the day. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 226 points, or 1.62%, on the day. By midday Wednesday, the Dow had regained more than 40 points.