The banking sector was one of the hardest hit sectors during the global financial crisis. However the sector has rebounded strongly in most countries as the global economy recovered from the abyss of those dark days of the crisis. Banks wrote off billions of dollars of bad debt and cleaned up their balance sheets. Many …
Continue reading ‘Foreign Bank Stocks May Be A Good Bet Now’ »
The latest Fed Stress Tests of US banks indicate that 17 of the largest 18 banks could withstand a deep recession and maintain enough capital above the minimums required. Ally Financial(ALLY), the car lending company that used to part of GM is the only odd man out in the Fed’s tests. The final results will …
Continue reading ‘Performance of KBW Bank Indices vs. S&P 500 Index’ »
Investing in bank stocks is back in fashion as the industry recovers from the brutal effects of the global financial crisis of 2008-09. Slowly many of the banks are increasing dividends and are reporting higher lending. With hundreds of regional and community banks trading on the markets, selecting individual banks for investment is a complex …
Two banks only have failed so far this year compared with many failures in 2012 and the years before. The number of bank failures has declined since the peak attained during the global financial crisis. In addition, many of the struggling banks have cleaned up their balanced sheets and raised capital in the years since. …
Regional banks have recovered strongly and are performing much better than the four banks. According to a recent article in the journal regionals are increasing lending and accordingly earnings are growing rapidly. The 4th quarter 2012 earnings reported so far by some of these banks are cheering investors who are bidding up the stocks prices. …
Continue reading ‘Buy the Regionals and Ignore Super Banks’ »