Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate and New York Senator Hillary Clinton capitalized on her hometown ties to win the race for Wall Street donations again in the fourth quarter of last year.

Clinton, a New York senator, took in $388,391 from employees of the top 10 underwriters of U.S. stock offerings. That topped the biggest Republican fundraiser on Wall Street, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who brought in $293,750 from that group. Democrat Barack Obama followed, with $251,860.

The figures, released in U.S. regulatory filings in the last two days, reflect Clinton's clear advantage in the polls over Obama toward the end of the year, said Rogan Kersh, an associate dean at the Wagner School at New York University.

``Many of the Wall Street Democratic donors began to see her victory as inevitable,'' Kersh said. ``And this is an unusually rational group of bettors, particularly skilled in anticipating return on investment; it made overwhelming sense to back Hillary Clinton through the fourth quarter.''

Wall Street, once a Republican bastion, has steered more of its money toward Democrats in the last year. Clinton, 60, and Obama have both demonstrated that they understand the needs of the financial community, said James Rubin, a partner with One Equity Partners, JP Morgan's $5 billion private-equity fund.

`Willingness to Listen'

``There's enough on the record from both candidates'' to encourage Wall Street donations, Rubin said. Rubin, the son of Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, is raising money for Obama, who he says has shown ``a willingness to listen to people who have experience in financial markets.''

Obama, 46, an Illinois senator, out-raised Clinton among top investment banks in the first two quarters of last year, only to lose his edge to the former first lady in the second half.

Both Democrats brought in at least $10,000 from employees of each of the top 10 stock underwriters in the quarter. The biggest haul from a single company was the $113,320 that employees of New York-based Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. gave to Clinton. She also got more than $30,000 each from employees of Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Romney, 60, benefited from the largesse of Lehman employees as well, raising $67,750 from that group in the three months through Dec. 31. That came close to the $74,547 that Romney's chief rival for the Republican nomination, Arizona Senator John McCain, got from employees of all the top stock underwriters.

Among Republicans, the second-place finisher on Wall Street was former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who dropped out of the Republican nomination race this week. The hometown mayor raised $222,840 from the top banks, regulatory filings show.

The figures are based on employers listed by donors in reports filed with the U.S. Federal Election Commission this week; in some cases, the names are missing or incomplete.

To contact the reporters on this story: Kristin Jensen in Washington at kjensen@bloomberg.net; Karen Leigh in Washington at kleigh@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 2, 2008 00:21 EST