Although financials rallied on the last day of our trading session ended Friday, bad news in the sector punished markets all week.

The negative mood was partly a holdover from previously announced losses at Citigroup and Bank of America, but the Royal Bank of Scotland piled on with a dismal 2008 forecast, leading investors to question the health of banks worldwide.

The last-day rally was led by tech stocks and the financials, but hampered by poor numbers from Dow bellwether General Electric. Wall Street looked down the grim road of already lowered expectations and saw little relief.

The Journal Record Index edged ahead of the pack, boosted by index kingpin Devon Energy.

However, financials suffered, and BancFirst was unable to recover from last week's earnings report, and was Oklahoma's top dollar loser in last week's index, which added 7.47 points, or 1.18 percent, and ended at 642.52. Despite the increase, declining issues outpaced advancing issues by a 2-to-1 margin.

Devon jumped $3.16, or 5.39 percent after speculation emerged that it might be among those companies in a position to pick up smaller energy companies caught in a liquidity crisis between the jaws of falling oil prices and the credit crunch.

"We come into this environment and view it as opportunity-rich," said Carl Tricoli, managing partner at Houston private equity firm Denham Capital Management. "Assets that you normally would not see for sale, will be for sale. Companies that normally would not be seeking outside equity capital will be seeking outside equity capital."

Devon closed at $61.84, and was the top dollar gainer.

Energy Transfer Partners slumped after the company announced and priced a public offering of 6 million common units. ETP said it will price the units at $34.05 each in an offering managed by a consortium of partners. Proceeds from the offering will be used to pay down debt and to finance capital expenditures and other ventures. The offering is expected to close Jan. 27. ETP lost $2.45, or 6.82 percent, and ended at $33.50.

Although Barclays Capital cut its price target on Alliance Resource Partners and a number of other coal companies, ARLP rose $2.79, or 9.18 percent, and ended at $33.17.

Originally published by Margot Crabtree.

(c) 2009 Journal Record - Oklahoma City. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.

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