WaMu, E*Trade, AMG and Raymond James

Washington Mutual Inc. and E*Trade Financial Corp. suffered second-quarter earnings losses, Affiliated Managers Group Inc. posted a quarterly profit drop and Raymond James Financial Inc. reported a net income gain. Washington Mutual’s second quarter loss of $3.3 billion, or $6.58 per share, was compared with a profit of $830 million, or 92 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecasted a loss of $1.05 a share for the Seattle-based savings and loan bank. WaMu’s poor quarterly earnings performance was due in large part to the nation’s housing woes, which increased its provisions for loan losses 68% from the first quarter to $5.9 billion. E*Trade Financial reported a second quarter earnings loss of $94.6 million, or 19 cents a share, compared to a net income gain of $159.1 million, or 37 cents a share, a year ago. The loss was attributed to the nation’s mortgage meltdown, which caused the New York-based discount brokerage to set aside $319 million in provisions for loan losses. E*Trade earned new customer asset flows of $900 million during the quarter and garnered 30,000 new brokerage accounts. Affiliated Managers Group of Boston saw its second quarter net income drop 16% to $35.3 million, or 89 cents per share, from $41.9 million, or $1.04 per share, in the year-ago period. AMG had $2.1 billion in net client flows for the quarter and saw its assets under management drop to $241.8 billion from $274.8 billion at the end of 2007. Raymond James Financial saw net income for its fiscal third quarter rise slightly to 69.9 million, or 59 cents a share, compared to $68.4 million, or 57 cents a share, a year earlier. Assets under management at the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based firm dipped to $35.8 billion at the end of June, compared with $36.1 billion at the close of the third quarter of 2007.