Thursday's Financial Winners & Losers

Updated from 2:34 p.m. EDT

Financial stocks leapt out of the gate Thursday before cooling off around midmorning to join the lackluster major indices.

One of the biggest winners was Municipal Mortgage & Equity (MMA Quote). Shares vaulted 20.4% after CEO Michael Falcone affirmed in a conference call that the company is "not engaged in subprime or any other single-family mortgage lending activities," misconceptions about which the company assumes triggered the previous day's sharp stock-price decline. The Baltimore firm also upped its dividend by a half-cent to 52.25 cents. Shares closed up $3.67 at $21.65 to mostly recover from Wednesday's slide.

Harleysville Group (HGIC Quote), of Pennsylvania, jumped 11.5% to $32.10 on a few pieces of good news. The insurer reported a profit of 81 cents a share (excluding realized gains) in the second quarter, or a dime past analysts' mean target, as per Thomson Financial. The firm also boosted its dividend by 31.6% to 25 cents a share and added another 1.6 million shares to its stock-repurchase program.

First Federal Bank of California (FED Quote) likewise authorized another 1.5 million shares for buyback. Shares traded up 7.5% to $46.04.

Unum Group (UNM Quote), meanwhile, posted second-quarter income of $181.5 million from continuing operations (adjusted), or 51 cents a share, for a year-over-year increase of 21.4% and a 4-cent EPS beat. The stock climbed 6.3% to $25.49.

Credit Suisse (CS Quote) bounced 5% after saying it earned $2.65 billion (3.19 billion Swiss francs), or $2.34 a share, vs. $1.54 a share last year.