Housing Drives Stock Market Increase for Second Day

The member stocks of the Mortgage Industry Equity Composite benefited on Wednesday from the good news regarding pending home sales that also pushed up the stock market as a whole.

While the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 175 points on the day, just two MIEC stocks were in the red compared with Tuesday’s close. OceanFirst Financial was down 2.48%, while Dime Community was down 0.35%.

Meanwhile, MGIC Investment Corp., set to release 4Q12 results Thursday morning, was 6.78%. Earlier in the day, private mortgage insurance rival Radian Group priced its equity offering at $8 per share, and the company’s stock traded above that level and closed at $8.45, a gain of $0.02 or 0.24%.

The other MIEC stocks with the biggest percentage gains were KB Home, up 3.43%, and Astoria Financial, up 2.94%.