Shares in Countrywide Financial Corp. swooned Tuesday after several reports surfaced that the company was close to filing bankruptcy protection.

“There is renewed speculation that Countrywide will declare bankruptcy or have some default action,” Al Greenberg, head options floor trader at broker-dealer BNY ConvergEx Group in Chicago told Reuters.

Bloomberg News also reported that the Calabasas-based company was close to filing for court protection, saying “the rumor was they would file for Chapter 11 this week,” according to Michael Mainwald, head of equity trading at Lek Securities Corp.

Countrywide quickly responded by issuing a statement that said “there is no substance to the rumor that Countrywide is planning to file for bankruptcy, and we are not aware of any basis for the rumor that any of the major rating agencies are contemplating negative action relative to the company.”

Countrywide is expected to disclose December mortgage lending activity sometime this week and is expected to report fourth-quarter results later this month.

Shares in Countrywide were battered in early trading, shedding as much as 26 percent, but later recovered slightly and were down more than 14 percent to $6.55 in afternoon trading Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange.