July 15 (Bloomberg) — Wachovia Corp. fell 7.7 percent after saying it’s “a fundamentally strong and stable company on solid footing.”

Wachovia has $150 billion in liquidity, spokeswoman Christy Phillips Brown said today in an e-mailed statement. The bank attracted $800 million in deposits yesterday and remains well capitalized with more than $50 billion in Tier 1 capital, she said. The shares erased most of a 21 percent decline.

Wachovia commented after Oppenheimer & Co. analyst Meredith Whitney downgraded the shares to “underperform” because of rising losses on home loans. Whitney reduced her rating on Wachovia to “underperform” from “perform.” The company will report losses of $1.35 a share this year and 35 cents in 2009, compared with prior profit estimates of $1.55 this year and $2.65 next, Whitney wrote.

Wachovia ousted Kennedy Thompson as chief executive officer on June 2 after cutting the dividend 41 percent and raising $8 billion in capital. The lender hired Treasury Undersecretary Robert Steel as CEO July 9, announced a second-quarter loss of at least $2.6 billion and said it plans to disclose information about cost cutting and “reducing its mortgage exposure” this month.

Wachovia declined 76 cents to $9.08 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange trading after tumbling as low as $7.80 earlier. The stock has declined 76 percent this year, the second-worst performance in the 24-member KBW Bank Index. National City Corp., Ohio’s biggest bank, has slumped 78 percent.

Source: Bloogmberg