New York Community Bancorp’s Stock Rises As Insiders Buy Stock

New York Community Bancorp. was up 9% at midday Friday as insiders at the company bought stock after a brutal couple of weeks for the bank.

With no major credit ratings actions or further updates from the company, New York Community Bancorp’s stock moved up by 39 cents to $4.59 a share. At the current level, the stock is trading at comparable prices to its closing levels in 1997, but well above its 52-week intraday low of $3.60 a share.

Executive Chairman Chairman Alessandro DiNello on Friday paid $209,480 for 50,000 shares of New York Community Bancorp at an average price of $4.19 each, according to a filing.

Director Peter Schoels bought $414,750 in stock and Senior Vice President Lee M. Smith purchased $101,250 in stock, according to filings.

Prior to trading on Friday, the stock
NYCB,
+14.20%
had lost about 60% of its value since announcing a surprise loss on Jan. 31 and then following up with a statement on its ‘ample’ liquidity and a new executive chairman on Wednesday.

New York Community Bancorp also sustained a slew of ratings cuts from analysts including a Moody’s debt downgrade to junk.

Earlier in the day on Friday, the stock traded at $4.10 a share, down about 2%.

Any close below $4.19 would be a new 52-week low, although the stock hit an intra-day low of$3.60 a share on Wednesday.

Before its swoon in recent days, New York Community Bancorp’s stock had not closed at $4.10 a share since April 30, 1997. Since 2000, the stock has largely stayed above $8 per share, except for brief dips in 2009 and 2020, amid two crises that affected the U.S. stock markets.

Since Jan. 30 — the day before its fourth-quarter loss disclosure — New York Community Bancorp.’s stock has lost 60.2% of its value, while the SPDR S&P Regional Banking
KRE
has fallen 11.1% and the S&P 500 is up 1.6%.

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Also read: Regional-bank bondholders seem unworried by New York Community Bank’s problems