Financial Winners & Losers: Prudential

Financial stocks continued the holiday-shortened week with slight gains Tuesday, as insurance companies and large financial firms benefited from a relatively quiet news day and slow trading.

The KBW Bank Index was up 1.2% in afternoon trading, and the AmEx Securities Broker/Dealer Index was adding 2.2%.

The broad uptick came even the S&P Case-Shiller 20-city home price index fell 18% year over year, indicating additional woes for the mortgage market. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index, meanwhile, hit an all-time low.

Shares in the financial space appeared to shrug off the bad economic data, rising slightly along with the major averages, which were each up more than 1.2% Tuesday afternoon.

Insurance firms led among the day's winners. Prudential (PRU Quote) and MetLife (MET Quote) rose 4.6% to $28.39, and 2.9% to $33.99, respectively. Each is down substantially this year. Prudential has lost 60%, and MetLife is down 39%.

The government approved a $5 billion bailout for GMAC, the auto financing company owned by General Motors (GM Quote) and Cerberus Capital Management. GM shares were up 4.4% at $3.76.

Elsewhere, Goldman Sachs (GS Quote) was up 2.8% to $78.69, and JPMorgan Chase (JPM Quote) added 2.2% to $30.44.

Morgan Stanley (MS Quote) edged down 0.7% to $14.80. Credit card company MasterCard (MA Quote) edged down 2.5% to $135.87.