Friday's Financial Winners & Losers

Higher-than-expected inflation numbers kept pressure on most financial stocks Friday, as they did for the rest of the market, but a few names managed to linger in positive territory.

Goldman Sachs (GS Quote), for instance, was climbing 2.2% to $213 after The Wall Street Journal reported that some of its traders' bets against risky mortgage-backed securities helped the brokerage to bring in nearly $4 billion in profits in the year ended Nov. 30, which would far more than offset its projected mortgage-related losses of $1.5 billion to $2 billion.

And, a day after Citigroup (C Quote) set plans to bail out its $58 billion in troubled structured investment vehicles (SIVs), Goldman upped its debt rating to outperform, per Reuters, voicing confidence that the banking giant will retain its AA ratings at credit rating agencies. Moody's today downgraded Citi's long-term debt rating by a notch but said the SIV move had had no bearing on that, and Standard & Poor's concurred on that point while taking no action. Citi stock sank out of the gate but, recently, it was up 1.7% at $31.53.

Meanwhile, online brokers and trading platforms continued to benefit from the market's late volatility. Charles Schwab (SCHW Quote) said November daily average trades surged 36% from a year ago, and 8% sequentially, to 344,000. Total client assets at the end of that month vaulted 18% year over year to $1.446 trillion. Shares were up 31 cents, or 1.3%, to $24.48.