Thursday's Late Winners & Losers

Stocks trended lower after the close Thursday, but a number of names eked out gains.

Among these was Corus Bankshares (CORS Quote), which leapt 11.9% to $18.30 after declaring a special cash dividend of $1 a share for holders of record as of July 18. The Chicago-based bank's board also "anticipates that it may discuss" more cash dividends before December 2010.

Jabil Circuit (JBL Quote) was also trading higher after the Florida-based electronic-manufacturing-services firm reported fiscal third-quarter "core" earnings of $47.4 million, or 23 cents a share. That beats Thomson Financial's mean target by 2 cents, despite representing a decline from last year. Revenue likewise topped expectations, having jumped 15.8% year over year to $3 billion. Shares climbed $1.35, or 6.4%, to $22.55.

Metabolix (MBLX Quote) added 4.1% after announcing that a German court dismissed a suit brought by the German arm of Proctor & Gamble (PG Quote) seeking to nullify a patent licensed exclusively to Metabolix by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The patent covers a method of producing some types of biopolymers.

The Cambridge, Mass., company, which develops clean alternatives to plastics, fuels and chemicals, was recently up 94 cents to $23.65. P&G was unchanged after finishing the regular session at $61.88.

Elsewhere, Connecticut's Distributed Energy Systems (DESC Quote) tacked on 9.7% to $1.02 on word two of its 100-kilowatt wind-power systems will be installed on a Malaysian island resort.

But Cognos (COGN Quote) slipped on soft guidance. The Canada-based software developer predicted non-GAAP earnings of between 34 cents and 39 cents in the fiscal second quarter, which would miss the average estimate by at least 2 cents. Despite squaring with the first-quarter consensus, shares were lately off 0.6% to $39.40.