SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Several companies tried to climb aboard the Securities and Exchange Commission's short selling lifeboat on Friday. Some of them may succeed.

Under pressure from Wall Street executives, the SEC temporarily banned short selling of roughly 800 financial-services stocks on Friday to try to halt a market meltdown. See full story.

Companies omitted include General Electric Co. GE, -1.29% , American Express AXP, -1.08% , Capital One COF, -1.23% , and CIT Group CIT, -3.03% , which all have huge financial-services businesses.

For GE, financial services make up about 45% of its overall business. A person familiar with the situation said the company has talked to the SEC about possibly being included on the list. American Express, one of the largest credit card companies, said it was just beginning to look into the possibility of being added.

CIT Group, a leading commercial lender in the U.S., "made a formal request to be added to the list," spokesman Curtis Ritter said in an email to MarketWatch.

A Capital One spokesman didn't return a phone message left seeking comment on Friday afternoon.

Guaranty Financial Group Inc. (Ticker: GFG) said Friday that it should be added to the list too. Guaranty said it is the second largest publicly-traded financial institution holding company headquartered in Texas and one of the 50 largest publicly-traded financial institution holding companies based in the U.S. ranked by asset size.

The SEC said it's willing to consider adding "comparable financial companies as appropriate."

"The Commission's order identifies banks, insurance companies and securities firms representing financial institutions whose securities are subject to sudden and excessive price fluctuation that threaten fair and orderly markets," the regulator said in a statement that was emailed to MarketWatch. "The Commission used the standard industrial classification codes to identify these institutions."