Countrywide Financial Corp. restated two quarters of 2003 earnings because of an accounting mistake in its recognition of gains from the sales of securitizations with embedded derivatives.

The Calabasas-based mortgage giant said the restatement, first announced on Feb. 22 in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, involved a change in accounting for securities that were sold after the end of the second quarter of 2003. In two SEC filings Tuesday, the company said it discovered that it had to record the sales in the period when all of the securities were completely sold.

Countrywide restated earnings for the second quarter of 2003 to 96 cents a share, down from $1.37 a share; and for the third quarter to $2.13 a share, up from $1.93 a share.

The company said only last year’s results would be affected by the mistake. It determined that it would need to move $185.7 million, or 20 cents a share, of earnings to the third quarter of 2003 from the second quarter.

The issue also forced the company to reduce net income in 2004 by 5.2 percent, moving a gain to the first quarter of 2005. The effect of the change reduced 2004 earnings to $3.63 per diluted share.