SunAmerica Stock Falls After Block Trade

Shares of SunAmerica Inc., the Century City financial services giant, fell about 3% after the company said it sold $577.5 million in stock through a large block trade over the weekend. The company’s stock fell $1.75 a share to close at $56 in New York Stock Exchange trading. Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Discover & Co. received the order for the trade at 7:30 p.m. Friday and sold the stock with strong demand from U.S. institutional investors before the market opened Monday. Morgan Stanley sold the SunAmerica stock at $55 per share, lower than SunAmerica’s closing price of $57.75 per share on Friday, the company’s 52-week high. The stock rose $4.18 a share Friday on news that SunAmerica was added to the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. The SunAmerica trade is another in a string of large block trades recently. Block trading, although risky, is attractive because it can be done cheaply and quickly.