Wachovia Post-Announces Wider Second Quarter Loss

If you didn't think $8.86 billion was enough of a quarterly loss for Wachovia, you're in luck!  The bank announced that it was increasing its second-quarter loss by $500 million pretax to reflect a hit it is likely to take from a settlement with regulators of the auction-rate securities probe.  The new and improved second-quarter loss is $9.11 billion, or $4.31 a share.  When Wachovia originally reported its second-quarter earnings, the stock posted a monster rally because losing $8.86 billion seemed like chump change at the time to investors, despite the fact that analysts were expecting the company to post a profit.  In any event, there's always the third-quarter to look forward to, the third-quarter pre-announcement, actual announcement, and quite possible post-announcement.