NatCity Tagged as 'Bear of the Day'

Zacks Equity Research, Chicago, has declared Cleveland-based National City Corp., the parent company of National City Mortgage, its "Bear of the Day" for Sept. 26.National City recently projected that its after-tax mortgage banking loss is likely to be in the neighborhood of $160 million in the third quarter, Zacks noted. NatCity's nonperforming assets rose 20% in the first two months of the quarter and its net chargeoffs climbed 36%, the research firm said. "Our new six-month target price of $23 per share (down by $8 per share) implies a negative return of about 9% during the period," Zacks said. "We are thus downgrading our recommendation on the shares of NCC from Hold to Sell." Zacks said the Bear of the Day is a stock expected to underperform the markets over the next three to six months. The research firm can be found online at http://www.zacks.com, and NatCity can be found at http://www.nationalcity.com.