J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is raking in money from depositors -- a bank's lifeblood -- as weaker institutions teeter. Golub Capital, a little-known lender to smaller corporations, has zipped to the front of its field ahead of flailing CIT Group Inc. and General Electric Co.'s GE Capital unit.

Ford Motor Co. is luring car buyers away from General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC. Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. hung Linens 'n Things Inc. out to dry.

Companies like these haven't "won" yet, with the economy still in the wringer. But the firms prevailing so far tend to share a few traits -- including a cushion of cash relative to their peers, a readiness to spend it and a willingness to go for the jugular -- that give them an edge for the moment at least.

New York Life Insurance Co. took a sizable hit from the financial crisis, losing $3.5 billion on its investment portfolio last year, triggering a loss for the year. However, because of its relatively conservative investments, it fared much better than rivals like giant American International Group Inc., which took a huge U.S.-taxpayer bailout.

New York Life executives went on the offensive. As the crisis raged, they told the firm's 11,000 insurance agents they had a "moral obligation" to explain the firm's strength to clients. The company gave agents a document ticking off rivals' woes and loaded them with materials describing New York Life's fat pile of rainy-day capital and triple-A ratings.

In the first quarter, New York Life leapfrogged over AIG, Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. and Lincoln National Corp. as one of the nation's top sellers of life insurance and annuities. Market share grew to 5.4% in the quarter from 3.6% a year earlier, according to data from ratings firm A.M. Best Co. analyzed by The Wall Street Journal.

"In normal times, you would not see those type of market-share gains," says Larry Mayewski of A.M. Best.

Recessions routinely upend industries. Downturns "are very fertile fields of opportunity," says Nancy Koehn, a business historian and professor at Harvard Business School. Winners are the ones better at "walking into the space vacated by rivals," she says, and at tracking how customers behave in tough times. . . .

Bain & Co. analyzed 750 companies just before and after the 2001 recession, ranking them on sales growth, profit margins and shareholder returns. It found more companies showed major change (gains or declines) from 2000 to 2002 than from 2003 to 2005, a relatively stable period.

Winners aren't "crazy risk takers," says Darrell Rigby, a Bain partner, but are prepared to "take prudent risks."

In the first quarter, New York Life jumped to second place, from ninth, in revenue from life-insurance premiums and annuity deposits. MetLife Inc. held on to first place while expanding its market share, and AIG tumbled a few spots to sixth, according to the A.M. Best data.

"This is a crazy environment," [New York Life’s ]Mr. Mathas says. "We probably never had a period where we could show our relative differentiation better."

—Nick Timiraos, Dan Fitzpatrick and Peter Lattman contributed to this article.

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