Financial Junk Acting Independently (CIT, FNM, FRE, ABK, AIG, ETFC)

CIT Group, Inc. (NYSE: CIT) is back to looking like its shares the paper they are printed on could be less valuable and less useful than toilet paper.  What is surprising is that this is not killing the other junky actively financial stocks.  CIT is down almost 40% at $1.46 on over 32 million shares on reports that it is close to collapsing, and that is before the market is even open. Common logic would dictate that this relation of one moving the others would be the case.  But junk under one roof is valued differently than junk under another roof.

Right before the open, there are many of the other junky financial stocks that are flat or trading up.  Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) is flat at $1.56 on less than 500,000 shares, while Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) is down 0.5% at $1.84 also on under 500,000 shares.  Ambac Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE: ABK) is actually up 1% at $1.80 on only 30,000 shares.

American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG) is actually up 1.5% at $45.90, and on only 230,000 shares.  E*TRADE Financial Corp. (NASDAQ: ETFC) is down about 2% at $1.76 on 3.3 million shares.

Maybe this tie won’t have any correlation now that we are getting closer and closer to the financial recovery. If there is not going to be correlation among all the junky names as a group even if in unrelated financial sectors, then the buyers are still around.

JON C. OGG