Shares of Huntington Bancshares Inc. (NASDAQ: HBAN) fell Friday afternoon after three days of gains as investors reacted negatively to news that the company planned to sell $400 million worth of common stock. At mid-afternoon Friday, shares of the Columbus, Ohio-based bank were down more than 2% to $4.41 a share.

On Friday, Huntington said it priced the shares at $4.20 a share, selling 95.2 million shares totaling some $400 million in gross proceeds. Deal underwriters have an 30-day option to buy another 14.3 million shares, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Early estimates of a contraction in the U.K. economy were not enough. First quarter 2009 estimates were revisited, showing a 2.4% fall in gross domestic product from the last quarter of 2008 to 2009. This downward revision made the first three months of the year the worst since people wore skinny ties, hated communism, and bore nicknames like "Buzz."

In the second quarter of 1958, U.K. GDP plummeted 2.6%, though the 2.4% threshold matches the depths hit in 1979. The original 2009 Q1 estimate was -1.9%, according to the Office for National Statistics in London.

In his Stellar Stocks Alert, newsletter advisor Richard Schmidt sees long-term opportunity in select brokerage stocks. Here, he looks at Charles Schwab (NASDAQ: SCHW) and E*Trade (NASDAQ: ETFC).

"Some of the strongest financials in the world have lost 60%, 70%, even up to 90% or more of their value in the last year. Shares of Charles Schwab have come down too. But the stock has lost less than 50%, at its worst.

"Most of that has come since October. We had hoped the stock would bottom. But the stock continued to drop through support, meaning the downtrend is still in place. We may eventually see it go down by more than 50%.

It looks like the economic slowdown that has chopped (or eliminated) returns in many asset classes is set to hit another sector, and a rarefied one at that: the hedge fund sector.

Hedge funds may post their worst monthly performance result in five years in July, after trade calculations on financial stocks and crude oil backfired, according to data provided by Hedge Fund Research Inc., Bloomberg News reported Monday.

Hedge Fund Research Inc.'s Global Hedge Fund Index was down 3.16% in July as of July 24 -- on pace to record its largest monthly decline since 2003. The index is also down 4.16% for the year.

Non-farm, private employment increased by 40,000 in May on a seasonally-adjusted basis, ADP announced Wednesday in the ADP National Employment Report. (pdf)

Meanwhile, the April 2008 estimated change in employment was revised up 3,000 to a gain of 13,000 jobs, ADP (NYSE: ADP) said.

The service sector of the economy added 77,000 jobs, while employment in the goods-producing sector declined 37,000 - - its 18th consecutive monthly decline.

Most of the decline in employment during May was accounted for by job losses at large companies, which registered an 18,000-job decline. Meanwhile, small businesses added 61,000 jobs and medium-sized business cut 3,000 jobs.

Conditions in two economic sectors hard hit by the slumping housing sector - - construction and financial activities - - continued to deteriorate. Construction employment fell 13,000 - - its 18th consecutive monthly decline - - bringing the total decline in construction jobs since the peak in August 2006 to 298,000. Employment in financial activities declined 5,000, its third straight monthly decline.

Economic Analysis: In general, a surprisingly upbeat ADP job report. The 40,000 job gain wasn't nearly enough to keep unemployment from rising, but at least it wasn't a decline. However, economists caution that one should not read too much into the monthly ADP job report, due to its limited scope (private sector payrolls). The more-telling indicator is the U.S. Labor Department's monthly payroll statistic, and May 2008's data will be released Friday at 8:30 a.m. EDT. That report is expected to show a 60,000-job decline, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists.

Research firm Punk, Ziegel & Co is putting a "buy" rating on Citigroup (NYSE: C). The research firm feels that the bank is the best proxy for investing in the global investment industry and that its write-downs are secondary. Quoted by MarketWatch, the firm said "The stock allows one to invest in the world's financial growth better than any other company. Others perform in one part of the financial sector or operate in one portion of the world."

That comment may be akin to saying that if you are going to drown in quicksand, you might as well find the best quicksand available. Citigroup is hardly a strong investment and the fact that its business operations are global and that it operates in many sectors has nothing to do with whether the bank can do well over the next year.

Citigroup is being scuttled by huge write-offs in its mortgage-related investment portfolio. Earnings from other divisions in the company are not likely to offset this and the bank may have to raise more capital. The resulting dilution could certainly drive the price of the company's stock down. There have also been comments from Wall Street that the big bank may have to cut its dividend. That is likely to make it much less attractive to a certain category of "yield-minded" investor.

Citi shares could be hit by more write-offs and the need to bring in a large sum of new capital.

That hardly makes it a "buy."

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

The stock market is like some punch drunk boxer who gets up after being knocked out only to be pounded yet again.

After rebounding for a milisecond, the Dow Jones industrial average ended the day below 13,000, down 170. The same investors who thought earlier in the day that the world wasn't going to end apparently have changed their minds yet again.

Remember that flicker of optimism earlier thiis afternoon.

Hester Capital Management's Craig Hester told Bloomberg News that, "The market to us looks very oversold and I think it's beginning to create some value in stocks."

Apparently, he wasn't alone.

Investors gobbled up shares of financial companies including Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) and Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE: MER) that had been beaten to a pulp over the past few days. Even Bear Stearns Cos. (NYSE: BSC), which had been especially hard hit, rose for a while. Of course, they all fell by the close of trading.

Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE:MER) posted earnings above and beyond Wall Street expectations, proving the company's many naysers wrong.

The financial services giant posted earnings per share of $2.24 on revenue of $9.7 billion, easiily surpassing analysts' estimates of EPS of $2.02 EPS and $9.25 billion in revenue.

A few weeks ago, brokerage stocks were being crushed when Bear Stearns (NYSE:BSC) was facing sharp hedge fund markdowns from toxic mortgage losses. Bloomberg has an article pointing to some $11 billion that the Wall Street firms are having to eat because of a credit crunch on some of the private equity deals.

Chairman & CEO, Stan O'Neal, noted in the release that revenue diversification made the strong performance possible despite uneven market conditions in what he described as "at times, a hostile market environment." That is referring to the current mortgage and debt markets that have been punishing big Wall Street firms..

The firm did not offer any formal guidance since brokerage firms are subject to conditions in the stock and bond markets. Super-leveraged debt instruments and derivatives help brokers live by the sword and die by the sword. So, as long as the markets remain healthy overall, then Merrill and its main competitors among so-called bulge bracket firms should be fine.

Merrill Lynch shares had traded over $89.00 in early trading, but shares are nearly back to flat at $87.45 on the day.

Jon Ogg is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

From the international-news-that-could-very-well-be-pertinent-to-your-financial-future department, Sweden has announced that it plans to abolish its decades-old wealth tax.

Does that sound moot? At first glance, perhaps. After all, Sweden is far away, and Swedish tax policy is not directly relevant to U.S. taxpayers.

However, a more critical look reveals that Sweden's move underscores an ongoing global trend toward privatization, markets and investment, and away from policies that restrict capital inflows, investment, and, more generally, commerce.

U.S. readers are familiar with investment conditions stateside in the last two decades, during which federal income taxes have been reduced and the nation has pursued a more business-friendly regulatory policy.

But what some readers may not be readily aware of is that the lower-tax/encourage-commerce trend has also been a feature of economic policy in Europe and Asia. To be sure, Europe's income-tax rates, in general, remain higher than those in the U.S., and many states in those regions have more-extensive social welfare states than the U.S., but the move toward investment, commerce and markets is clear, and Sweden's wealth-tax abolishment is further evidence.

For the past two years I have been given 50 free (online) stock trades associated with my Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC) Portfolio Management Account (PMA). I do not make anywhere near this many trades and do not expect to -- even in the next five years. So for me it makes all trading free. The PMA account has been convenient in many ways because it ties together my equity line, cash management, checking, credit cards, and stock accounts.

Recently, Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) has done the same thing and offered me 100 free trades. This seems to be the new direction in banking and relationship management. Telecommunications and cable networks are bundling services as well to increase revenue and make the relationship "stickier."

But as the banking services become similar, it's likely I will drop one bank for another and consolidate accounts further. This will likely happen a lot.

So who loses out? For me, in the short run it is likely to be Charles Schwab Corp. (NASDAQ:SCHW) because it still charges me for trading. Without the same network of branches as its competitors, it loses out on face-to-face contact as well. To mitigate this, I think Schwab will have to continue migrating its services toward asset management and banking and be forced to mimic the services of its competitors.

Mellon Bank / Mellon Financial Corp. (NYSE:MEL) (recently acquired by The Bank of New York Co., Inc. (NYSE:BK)) is also at a disadvantage (although it is not a retail bank and holds our business accounts only.) Mellon has been trying for years to increase the depth of our relationship, but for whatever reason has not elected to tie its services together and cannot compete with the full breadth of services offered by Wells and B of A. To its credit, however, Mellon has offered a high level of service for our many enterprises, and I doff my hat to Fred, Roger, Lynn, Janet, Tamara, Josh, German and Caesar in the Century City office. Without that valuable face-to-face relationship with them, we'd probably be gone.

All of the institutions we do business with offer what is referred to generally as "premier" banking. Each requires some level of account size or banking relationship to achieve a particular level of service. As competition heats up, this threshold will probably drop.

The price competition in stock trading and the consolidation of the industry has been, and will continue to be, forefront in the business news for years to come. E*Trade, Scott Trade, Fidelity and TD Ameritrade are all beating each other up with free trading offers, discounts to new clients, banking opportunities and more. You can find these amazing offers spread throughout the AOL Money and Finance pages and every other financial web outlet.

The very word "Bank" has become more and more obsolete, while "Financial Institution" becomes ever more relevant. For the consumer, the opportunities are expanding as the services and price competition keep increasing. Who do you "bank" with? Who do you "trade" with? Is there a better term than financial institution?

Check out my other posts for BloggingStocks here. and be sure and read You don't have to be 007 to find the best picks for 2007!

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the vice president for design and research at an architecture & planning firm.