Tag - UWBK

Heritage Commerce Corp. (Nasdaq:HTBK), General Steel Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq:GSI) and Vanda Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq:VNDA) are among the biggest percentage losers in Monday's trading among companies with market capitalizations under $1 billion.

Also included among the results: Diamond Hill Investment Group (Nasdaq:DHIL), C&F  Financial Corp. (Nasdaq:CFFI), First Citizens Bancorp Cleveland (Nasdaq:FCZA), bebe stores Inc. (Nasdaq:BEBE), United Western Bancorp Inc. (Nasdaq:UWBK) and Parke Bancorp Inc. (Nasdaq:PKBK).

Stocks are navigating choppy trading Wednesday after the Federal Reserve’s recent meeting meetings showed that officials saw that the economy was deteriorating.

At 2:18 pm ET, the Russell 2000 (NYSE:IWM) is up 5.73, or 1.33%, at 437.43, while the Dow is up 0.23% and the S&P 500 is up 0.59%.

Pulte Homes Inc. announced today that it has agreed to buy rival small-cap Centex Corp. (NYSE:CTX) for $1.3 billion in a stock deal that will create the nation's largest homebuilding company. Centex shares are currently up almost 20%.

Other small caps climbing today include United Western Bancorp (Nasdaq:UWBK), up 42% on news it will sell certain assets of its Sterling unit.

******It doesn’t happen often. Earnings season usually kicks off with either some bullish enthusiasm or bearish pessimism. But Tuesday afternoon, Alcoa (NYSE:AA) gave analysts exactly what they were looking for: nothing more, nothing less.

Alcoa lost money in the first quarter. A lot of it, really. $497 million. A year ago it earned $303 million.

But that loss was, apparently, perfectly priced into the stock. And so . . .