Mr. Stulpin: We recently reassigned coverage within our banking team. I transferred my Pacific Northwest names and am currently focused on rounding out my coverage with Southwest names. A regional distinction between analysts makes sense. All of the companies I cover are headquartered in California, with the exception of Western Alliance, which is headquartered in Nevada but has subsidiaries throughout the Southwest.
TWST: How would you characterize the industry over the last six months or so? How have the banks in your coverage universe performed in comparison to banks in other regions?
Mr. Stulpin: In the past six months, we have been bumping along the bottom, and the bumps have tended to separate the winners from the losers. It has become more evident which banks will survive, and which banks will continue to flounder and possibly fail. I think the footprint that I cover has been more stressed than most other regions of the U.S., with the exceptions obviously of Florida and maybe Detroit. California, the sixth largest economy in the world, entered this cycle sooner than anybody else. So I think it's probably going to turn, if it's not already turning, before the majority of the other states or regions.
Tickers included in this excerpt: CATY, CLFC, EWBC, NARA, WAL, WIBC
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