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Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Financial Stocks Dive, Fear Focused On REITs, Bond Insurers
Greg Morcroft
MarketWatch Pulse
NEW YORK -- U.S. financial stocks, as tracked by the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF , which includes all the financial stocks in the S&P 500, fell 7% late Wednesday near the close as investors worried about the financial health of large real estate investment trusts and bond insurers. General Growth Properties , a REIT, fell more than 50%, and Developers Diversified , another real estate investment trust fell 18%. Bond insurer Ambac shed 39%, and MBIA , a rival, fell 21%.
Copyright © 2008 MarketWatch, Inc.
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A specialist is a member of a stock exchange who works as an auctioneer for a specific stock and/or stocks. It can be an individual, partnership, corporation or group of firms.
The specialist works to maintain a "fair and orderly market" for respective stocks, matching up buyers and sellers by displaying the best "bid" and "ask" prices at its trading post. If buys are not equal to sells, the specialist evens the scale by buying or selling shares, accordingly. However, they cannot make their own transactions until all investor orders have been placed.
Gauging supply and demand, the specialist sets an opening price for the stocks in its domain. If a price has not been set by the time the market opens, the specialist can delay that particular stock's opening.
Specialists make money off the "spread," which is the difference between bid and ask prices on orders.
