The stock market soared upwards on Friday morning with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up over 200 points as many investors having their fears allayed (at least for now) with the latest solution to the banking crisis in Europe. That rising tide also brought up many stocks associated with the mortgage industry.
At 12:15 p.m. Friday, the biggest gainers percentage-wise among mortgage stocks includes Flagstar up 6.6% to $0.81 per share and the three publicly traded mortgage insurers—MGIC, up 5.9% to $2.86 per share; Genworth, up 4.4% to $5.67 per share; and Radian, up 4.1% to $3.30 per share. Even AIG, whose mortgage insurance unit United Guaranty is a small part of its business, saw its stock price rise over 3%.
Title company stocks were led by Stewart, up 3.19% to $15.27 per share, followed by Old Republic, up 1.72% to $8.30 per share, First American, up 1.25% to $17.02 per share and Fidelity National Financial, up 0.31% to $19.20 per share.
Until this morning, ORI's stock price had been tanking as investors as well as Fitch and Moody's had a negative reaction to the cancellation of the spinoff of the private mortgage insurance business.
By dollar amount, the leaders are Wells Fargo, up $0.71 per share to $33.20; and Lenders Processing Services, up $0.61 to $25.34 per share. JPMorgan Chase, up 2% earlier in the day, had sunk into the red by midday.
Tech firms Ellie Mae and CoreLogic also were up $0.25 and $0.21, respectively, as of midday.
