'Old-fashioned' banks manage to avoid credit crisis

— -- U.S. financial giants can apparently learn a thing or two from little banks in places such as Danvers, Mass.; Hudson City, N.Y.; and San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Outside of Manhattan, a handful of smaller banks stuck to traditional banking, and their shareholders are being richly rewarded. Led by CEOs who in many cases answer their own phones, the smaller banks steered clear of the risky loans, even though it made them look old-fashioned and backward.

Of the 707 banks tracked by Standard & Poor's Capital IQ, 31 mostly smaller firms have stock prices that are 6% or less below their 52-week highs, a USA TODAY analysis of the data found. Meanwhile, the Select Sector SPDR Financial, which mirrors the performance of S&P's financial stock index, is off 30%. Most of the smaller banks also managed to increase earnings in 2007, a year when the S&P 500 financial sector's earnings fell 34%.

That comes in many forms, including: