"Radian is a very cheap stock -- at $3.50, one of the few," data-oriented investment manager Laszlo Birinyi of Birinyi  Associates told Bloomberg News this morning.
  Radian, the Center City-based bond- and mortgage- insurer, is also saying it expects to keep insuring Fannie and Freddie mortgages following the government takeover, debt-watcher CreditSights Inc. told clients in a note. That's good news, but CreditSights also noted it expects Radian credit ratings could still drop from current Ba1/BBB levels.
  Radian faces big losses from subprime home-loan foreclosures. The company got permission from regulators in New York and Pennsylvania to "commingle" capital from its bond and mortgage businesses, CreditSights analysts Rob Haines and Craig Guttenplan wrote last month. It may not be a great idea, but it's legal, and it's working,  for now, they said in a report last week.