Tuesday's Financial Winners & Losers

Updated from 2:28 p.m. EDT

Financial stocks shot out of the gate before cooling down to trade in line with the broad indices Tuesday, and among the biggest winners was Luminent Mortgage Capital (LUM Quote).

Shares rocketed 34.1% in heavy trading after the real estate investment trust said it has repaid all of the warehouse lines of credit that had financed its $594.8 million in nonsecuritized whole loans and commitments to purchase another $320.9 million worth. The San Francisco company also said it sold all but five loans in its warehouse facilities, and it has laid off 15 employees since August. Shares closed up 44 cents to $1.73.

Thornburg Mortgage (TMA Quote) also gained ground after UBS upgraded the struggling mortgage investor to buy. The analyst said the worst is probably over for the lender, and that there also appears to be a low risk of bankruptcy.

Thornburg shares jumped 8.8% to close at $13.37. Luminent and Thornburg helped prop up the NYSE Financial Sector Index, which bounced 1.4% to about 8892.

Also lending support to the tracker were Puerto Rico-based bank Doral Financial (DRL Quote), which soared 18.1% to close at $23.73; broker Lehman Brothers (LEH Quote), up 2.5%; and Commerce Bancorp (CBH Quote), up 3.6%.

The KBW Bank Index, which also counts Commerce among its members, added 1.5% to 104.50.

Elsewhere in the green, Pennsylvania's Dollar Financial (DLLR Quote) got a 7.6% lift to close at $25.90 after the credit-services firm posted a fiscal fourth-quarter profit of $11.7 million, or 48 cents a share, (excluding items) to top Thomson Financial's estimates by a penny. Revenue surged 25.5% year over year to a higher-than-expected $109.1 million.