Anthracite Capital (AHR) Ventures Outside Its Comfort Zone

Anthracite Capital (AHR: scorecard, quote, chart) is topping the list of today's biggest percent gainers – the equity is up 29% at last check. The company reported earnings of 34 cents per share this morning, up from last year's 29 cents per share. What may be cheering investors the most are CEO Chris Milner's assurances that "Anthracite has not invested any of its capital in the subprime or Alt-A segments of the residential mortgage market." Whew!

Prior to today's spike higher, AHR had suffered from a recent, massive wave of selling pressure that sent the shares to a 40% loss in just over 2 weeks. Not too surprising, I guess, since the stock is a finance company specializing in real-estate investments (in case you had not heard, financial stocks have been doing a little bit of what the kids call "tanking" in recent weeks).

The good news for AHR is that it's bouncing back – plus, the gap lower took the stock out of its sideways channel between 11 and 13, which had stifled the stock's movement since March of this year. What's more, a longer-term view reveals that the equity has staged only 3 monthly closings outside of the 9.50-13.50 range since March of 2001, which is quite the period of dormancy. It's nice to change up the old routine every once in a while, isn't it, Anthracite?

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