It's not all gloom and doom for automakers. Amid news that auto sales in the U.S. have fallen to their lowest annual rate since December 1981 and lag 39.4% behind year-to-date sales at this point last year, some models are bucking the trend.

Fifteen cars from 10 automakers saw their sales hold steady or increase last month, when compared to year-over-year data from February 2008. Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche (other-otc: PSEPF.PK - news - people ) were the big movers, each with multiple models that gained ground.

The bad news, however, is that only two models from domestic automakers made the list: the Saturn Astra, which saw sales increase 30.3% over last year, and the Mercury Sable, with an increase of 35.5%. General Motors recently announced plans to halt production on all Saturn models and phase the brand out of existence by 2011.

Total sales by Detroit's Big Three are down 48.5% this year to date compared to last year. European brands were down almost half that.

Behind the Numbers
To find the cars that came through with recent sales success, we used February 2009 numbers from Autodata, a research firm in Woodcliff Lake, N.J. The numbers tally total U.S. sales for all brands on a year-over-year rate. Percentages are based on actual sales each month, and were not adjusted for more or less selling days per month.

Despite the gains, individual models don't reflect the industry at large; most of the cars with the strongest gains come from brands that lost ground last month. Audi's A5 and S5 coupes, for instance, gained 28.6% in sales from February 2008, but the brand declined 24.4% in overall sales. Models like the A3 (down 51.6% in February), A6 (down 47.5% in February) and A8 (down 67.5% in February) did more than their part to drag Audi down.

Similarly, the Nissan 350Z's 33% gain couldn't fully mitigate the brand's 37.1% loss compared to February 2008. All told, only Kia (0.4%), Smart (28.5%) and Subaru (1.4%) posted overall gains last month over February 2008.

Sign of the Times
Even models with only slightly decreased sales are cause for celebration in the grim economic climate. The Mercedes-Benz SLR Class is one such example: By merely maintaining its sales from month to month, it made our list of the best performers.

Some of the vehicles with the largest gains on our list got ahead because of product launches that had only just started in February 2008. Models like the redesigned Porsche Boxster had time to reach more robust sales figures by this year; it had practically nowhere to go but up.

A Perfect Storm for Sales
Other vehicles, like Hyundai's Accent and Elantra, benefited from several factors: the widely publicized win of the underdog Hyundai Genesis as North American Car of the Year at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show; Hyundai's unprecedented "Assurance" program, which allows new-car buyers to return their vehicle if they lose their job; and aggressive marketing through the month of February.

Hyundai commercials during two high-profile events, the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards, contributed to the increase in sales, says Chris Hosford, a spokesman for Hyundai. The shows tend to skew to male and female audiences, respectively, Hosford says, which presented a desirable balance in Hyundai's advertising budget.

"We feel that both of them are must-watch TV, and it's the kind of thing that people tend to watch live as opposed to Tivo, and therefore they tend to see the advertising to a greater extent than they might otherwise," Hosford says. "And then also they just have great numbers."

Affordable Luxury
Porsche, meanwhile, credited its higher sales numbers to mechanical updates on its most popular model--the Porsche 911 Carrera/GT3 gained 17.8% over February 2008--and to an "affordability campaign." The message: Owning or leasing a Boxster (up 127.4%) or Cayman (up 0.4%) may be less expensive than drivers assume.

"We're very hopeful that we've gained some traction," says Tony Fouldapour, a spokesman for Porsche. "We're optimistic because of the new models we have; we're able to offer something a little bit different to the consumer in the showroom. So we would hope that that momentum would continue, but it's very hard to predict."

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Momentum was certainly a factor with the anomalies on our list. BMW's M3 Convertible, with its 999.9% increase, reflects nascent pre-sales that hadn't gained full traction in the marketplace last February.

"We really didn't get into the market until May [last year], so we're looking at probably another two months where you're going to see very little sales the previous year," says Tom Plucinsky, a spokesperson for BMW. "April, May and June are the hot months for convertibles."

That said, automakers have been hesitant to predict whether the positive sales for these particular models will continue. Most say they are simply focused on enjoying the gains while they last.

Stocks hold gains despite sluggish housing data

Investors were relieved Tuesday after a government report on the economy met expectations and eased their concerns that the recession is deepening.

The Commerce Department reported third-quarter gross domestic product, a measure of the economy that tallies the value of goods and services, fell at an annual rate of 0.5 percent. That was in line with analysts' expectations and matched the government's estimate of a month ago.

While the readings show further weakness, investors have likely already priced in very low expectations. The concern, however, is that the current quarter will be much worse.

The market was also able to get past a report that showed sales of new homes fell in November to the slowest pace in nearly 18 years, while new home prices dropped by the biggest amount in eight months.

New home sales fell by 2.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual sales pace of 407,000 units, a weaker performance than economists had expected and was the slowest sales pace since January 1991. The median price of a new home sold in November was $220,400, a drop of 11.5 percent from the sales price a year ago.

Trading volume was light, and is expected to remain so the rest of this week as investors head into the holidays. Analysts are mindful that light volume tends to skew the market's movements, and warned that this week may not suggest any long-term trends.

"Don't read too much into the numbers until the end of the day, we're really in a holding pattern right now," said Ryan Larson, head of equity trading at Voyageur Asset Management. "It is a very quiet news week, and much of it has already been priced into the market."

In late morning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 20.87, or 0.24 percent, to 8,540.64.

Broader indexes were also higher. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 2.95, or 0.34 percent, to 874.58. The Nasdaq composite index added 6.58, or 0.43 percent, to 1,538.93. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 0.96, or 0.20 percent, to 474.11.

Advancing issues led decliners by 4 to 3 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 245 million shares.

Bond prices were little changed Tuesday. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 2.15 percent from 2.17 percent late Monday. The yield on the three-month T-bill, considered one of the safest investments, was unchanged at 0.02 percent from late Monday.

In corporate news, greeting-card company American Greetings Corp. said it swung to a third-quarter loss, hurt by hefty charges and a decline in sales. Shares fell $3.00, or 30 percent, to $6.82.

Commercial financial firm CIT Group Inc. said Tuesday it received preliminary approval to obtain $2.33 billion as part of the government's $700 billion bank investment program.

The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices fell.

Light, sweet crude fell 76 cents to $39.10 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 1.57 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 2.75 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 was up 1.05 percent, Germany's DAX index was up 1.11 percent, and France's CAC-40 was up 0.48 percent.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

Like everyone else, Warren Buffett's equity portfolio, year-to-date, has sustained serious damage. Not to worry! Unlike headmen at banks, brokerage houses and insurance conglomerates, nobody's throwing Warren out of his house (I assume no mortgage) and dumping his chattels on the sidewalk.

The heart of Berkshire Hathaway's (nyse: BRK - news - people ) portfolio hardly changes decade over decade, because its low cost basis makes harvesting prohibitive. Why should Buffett singlehandedly cure the Treasury's deficit with his capital gains levies?

Berkshire's equity portfolio exceeded $50 billion at September's end. The 12 largest positions totted up to $48 billion. The top three holdings, $22 billion worth, remain Coca-Cola (nyse: KO - news - people ), Wells Fargo (nyse: WFC - news - people ) and Procter & Gamble (nyse: PG - news - people ). Huge winners, but Buffett got into P&G when it acquired his legacy holding, Gillette. I'm not sure how happy Buffett is with P&G, but, again, why pay billions in capital gains taxes?

Is your portfolio ready for recovery? Small-caps excel coming out of recessions. Click here for Oberweis Report best buys with a risk-free trial.

Wells Fargo is a survivor among the five largest banks in the country, more than you can say for Wachovia (nyse: WB - news - people ), which Wells swallowed, edging out Citigroup (nyse: C - news - people ). I owned a lot of Bank of America (nyse: BAC - news - people ) but whittled it down over concern about earnings power next year. All banks could be setting aside inadequate reserves for loan losses on mortgages, credit card receivables and commercial and industrial loans, but the Citigroup bailout suggests that the biggest survive but do not necessarily prosper.

When I drill down into Berkshire's top 10 holdings, some are relatively new positions. ConocoPhillips (nyse: COP - news - people ) and Burlington Northern Santa Fe (nyse: BNI - news - people ) together account for $9 billion of the portfolio, and they're problematic today. Railroad car loadings are fading fast as the recession bites into industrial production, inventories and commodity shipments.

When Chrysler was near death and awaiting a government bailout in 1979, then-CEO Lee Iacocca ordered drastic spending cuts and required all checks above $1,000 to be approved by a senior vice president.

Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corp. need to follow the same play book now, industry analysts and management professors say, as they try to outlast the debate in Washington over whether they will get billions in government loans.

With no hope of getting credit elsewhere and auto sales at a 25-year low, both automakers are perilously close to having only the minimum amount of cash needed to operate.

Today, with GM alone spending $6.9 billion more than it took in last quarter and having operations in 34 countries, Iacocca's $1,000 limit might not be practical. But industry analysts and bankruptcy experts say both companies must take similar measures to ensure their companies live long enough to use any loans they get.

"You turn the electricity off. You do things like shut the proving grounds down," said Jim Hall, managing director of 2953 Analytics of Birmingham, Mich.

Top executives of GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. went to Washington this week seeking roughly $25 billion but ran into so much opposition that Congress delayed voting on the bailout until the automakers prove they can be viable.

They must submit a plan to Congress by Dec. 2, followed by more hearings before any vote is taken. That means money won't be available at least until late December, probably not until early next year.

Meanwhile, the companies face huge expenses and a lack of revenue because car buyers are having trouble getting financing or are delaying big purchases because of uncertainty about their jobs. October was the worst U.S. auto sales month in 25 years, and November is looking only slightly better.

Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli told the Senate Banking Committee his company had $6.1 billion in cash at the end of the third quarter after burning up $1 billion in cash per month from July through September.

GM fared worse. It burned up $6.9 billion last quarter and about $6 billion in the first half of the year and has warned that it could reach its minimums sometime next month.

Ford, while burning through billions as well, has a big stockpile of borrowed money and says it can last at least through 2009.

But without aid soon, GM and Chrysler will have trouble paying bills and may have to seek bankruptcy protection.

Inside both companies' headquarters, teams likely are looking to cut spending any way they can, including delays in new investments, experts say.

"They have to take really drastic steps in their cost-cutting," said Robert Wiseman, a Michigan State University professor who teaches strategic management. "Stop buying everything except for the most critical things they need for their operation."

GM announced Friday it is canceling its traditional holiday party for the media "due to the very difficult economic situation facing the nation, the state, the industry, and our company." The party will be replaced by a $5,000 donation to a journalism scholarship fund.

At Chrysler, Nardelli testified, there's a cash committee that scrutinizes requests every week.

But what they're doing now may not be enough. Some in Congress criticized the CEOs for flying to Washington on separate corporate jets. GM is reducing its leased fleet from seven planes last year to three, but the stigma remains.

Lawmakers also rapped the automakers' high labor costs and particularly the jobs bank, in which laid-off workers get 95 percent of their pay plus benefits even though they aren't working.

The United Auto Workers said it has cut the jobs bank and placed time limits on it in new contracts signed with the companies last year. Still, more than 3,500 workers are getting paid for not working, and that number is sure to rise as the companies continue to cut jobs.

On Friday, GM announced it would extend holiday shutdowns and make other production cuts at five North American factories. It also accelerated the closure of a truck plant in Oshawa, Ontario.

Harlan Platt, who teaches corporate turnarounds at Northeastern University in Boston, said GM should turn to the UAW for help.

"The bank right now is the union, and they're going to have to give up something in the near term so they have something very valuable in the long term," Platt said.

Initially the UAW said it already gave up a lot in the new contracts, agreeing to lower wages for new hires and to shift the companies' huge retiree health care costs to a union-administered trust.

But on Thursday, President Ron Gettelfinger softened his stance, saying that the union is at the bargaining table already.

"We would welcome all the other stakeholders to the table to make some concessions," he said.

In Washington, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said lawmakers are trying to get reassurances that the companies have a specific plan to survive before the government hands over taxpayer money. But that might be troublesome for the automakers.

GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner told reporters Thursday that the company already has shared a detailed plan confidentially with the Bush administration and key staffers in Washington. He's concerned that sensitive information could be made public.

"Historically things like your future product plans, technology plans and financial plans would be competitively sensitive information, and so for a variety of reasons, we wouldn't be sharing that publicly," he said.

Douglas Baird, a professor who specializes in bankruptcy at the University of Chicago Law School, says the automakers were too vague, giving Congress less information than companies normally give lenders when seeking bankruptcy financing.

"That's not the way you approach a lender in a work-out. That's just not the way it's done," he said.

Wagoner, he said, will have the difficult task of showing Congress how GM can be viable with its current structure.

"That's not going to be easy to do," he said.

TOKYO -- A Japanese girl was held captive at home for eight years by her mother, officials revealed for the first time Thursday, acknowledging that authorities repeatedly missed the abuse despite several warning signs.

South Korean police officers walk by displays of models of mock North Korea's Scud-B missile, left, and other South Korean missiles at Korea War Memorial Museum in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 20, 2008. South Korea said Monday it was business as usual in North Korea, casting skepticism on media reports that Pyongyang was poised to make an announcement possibly concerning the health of its leader

SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea accepted a North Korean proposal to hold military talks, a Defense Ministry official said Saturday, amid continuing tensions on the divided peninsula.

Ties between the two countries, which are still technically at war, have soured since South Korea's pro-U.S. conservative president, Lee Myung-bak, took office in February with a pledge to get tough with North Korea.

In protest, North Korea suspended reconciliation talks and threatened to cut any remaining relations if Seoul continues a policy of "reckless confrontation."

But South Korea, which denied this past week it had taken a hard-line stance toward the North, agreed to a meeting Monday inside the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula, the South Korean official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The move came a day after North Korea proposed the talks involving lieutenant colonel-grade officers to discuss military communication lines between the two Koreas.

Earlier this month, the two sides failed to make any progress in colonel-level talks _ their first official contact since Lee took office.

During that meeting, the North lodged a strong complaint over leaflets critical of its leader, Kim Jong Il, sent over the border via balloon by private activists in South Korea. North Korea threatened to expel South Koreans working at joint projects in the North if the propaganda did not stop.

The two Koreas agreed in 2004 to end decades of fierce propaganda battles which often used leaflets and messages over powerful loudspeakers near their border denouncing the other side.

Also Saturday, North Korea stepped up its hostile rhetoric against South Korea.

"If someone commits provocations against (the North), it will not miss an opportunity but resolutely respond to confrontation with confrontation and war with war and mercilessly punish the aggressors," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary from the country's official Korean Central News Agency.

The 1950-53 war between the two Koreas ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula technically still at war.