Thursday's Financial Winners & Losers

Financial stocks delivered a lackluster performance Thursday, trailing the broader market on some disappointing earnings news.

Bear Stearns (BSC), for example, gave back Wednesday's run-up gains after falling short of Wall Street expectations. The New York brokerage posted a $3.40 per-share second-quarter profit (excluding an 88-cent one-off charge) -- a dime lower than Thomson Financial's mean target. Shares recently lost 1.8%, or $2.62, to $146.87.

Goldman Sachs (GS) came in ahead of second-quarter estimates, but earnings were only marginally higher than last year as "continued weakness in the subprime [mortgage] sector" heavily weighed on revenue in fixed income, currency and commodities. After yesterday's actively traded run-up, shares pulled all the way back, and then some, to recently surrender 3.1% at $226.48.

Mortgage lender Freddie Mac (FRE) saw choppy trading after swinging to a loss of $211 million, or 46 cents a share. Shares took a fall out of the gate but were virtually flat at $65.89 in recent trading. And online broker Knight Capital (NITE) was off 2.3% to $17.84 after reporting a 37.8% year-over-year plummet in May average daily share volume, despite a concurrent 15.7% rise in average daily trades.

The NYSE Financial Sector Index, which tracks all but one of the above names, added 0.1% to 9794.55 to come in well under the rest of the market. The KBW Bank Index was recently flat at 116.20.