Regional banks make lots of money with a step yield curve, like we have now. Thay have little international exposure (except for border statres like Texas). They tend to be under covered by Wall Street -
Money center banks, like Citi C, JP Morgan JPM, etc. have derivaties exposure, international exposure, and investment bank activities. Make analysis more complicated.
Consumer lenders, like Household (recently bought by HSBC),Captial One COF, Providian PVN, etc. have credit quality issues until employment picks up, which happens much later in the recovery.
I don't know enough about business leasing to comment, except hta a big portion of business leasing was in Jet aircraft for airlines. Lots of unused planes parked in the desert now.
Part of the pattern with small banks is they get started, grow, and then the founders sell out to a larger chain. The executives in the bank who didn't get rich enough (usually the younger ones) start a new bank and and get some of the customers who don't like dealing with a a major conglomerate bank....
One thing to look at is the ages of all the officers, and where they came from.
If you find a good bank discussion thread, let me know... |
