Shares of Washington bank, Cowlitz Bancorp. (Nasdaq: CWLZ) have been on a wild ride over the past three weeks. Shares of Cowlitz were up 25 percent from Monday’s close, in morning trading on Tuesday after the company announced that it presented an updated plan to regain compliance with two Nasdaq Listing Rules with which it is not in compliance and requested a 90-day exception to the continued listing standards.
The Company previously announced that on May 12, 2010, it received a delisting determination letter from Nasdaq due to the Company not being in compliance with the minimum 500,000 publicly held shares requirement set forth in Listing Rule 5550(a)(4).
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Last week, shares dove about 10 percent after the company announced it received a Supervisory Prompt Corrective Action Directive from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that calls for Cowlitz’s main subsidiary, The Cowlitz Bank of Longview, Wash. to recapitalize within 30 days of the order, or sell or merge with a healthier institution.
The sell-off came on the heels of a surge, that sent the stock soaring as high as $6.99 in intraday trading the week before.
According to TheStreet.com:
News of the order shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise. The Cowlitz Bank was included in TheStreet’s Bank Watch List of undercapitalized banks and thrifts, based on first-quarter regulatory data provided by SNL Financial, because the bank’s Tier 1 leverage ratio was 3.37% and its total risk-based capital ratio was 6.68% as of March 31.
These ratios need to be at least 5% and 10% for most banks to be considered well capitalized. The ratios need to be at least 4% and 8% for most institutions to be considered adequately capitalized by regulators.
A day after the sell off, shares soared nearly 54 percent in Thursday trading, skyrocketing $1.92 to close at $5.49. On a normal day, Cowlitz trades about 63,500 shares trade, but on Thursday, trading volume was more than 545,000 shares.
Cowlitz is considered “critically undercapitalized” by the FDIC.
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