Ms. Hunsicker: My coverage list primarily is focused on the Northeast banks. We've got eight bank analysts here at Stifel, and we are primarily geographically and also market-cap focused. But I also do follow some of the conversions, the demutualized thrifts, the whole process that Peter Lynch made so famous. From the standpoint of what we cover and in terms of what we're focusing on, it's largely been all about the two C's, capital and credit. And it's been all about the two C's for the last two years. Basically, our investment rationale is somewhat of a four-pronged approach. We look at peers, we look at management expertise, and then it's been, as I mentioned earlier, focus on the two C's, capital and credit. What we've really seen is investor sentiment - and this is going back over the last six, seven, eight quarters - shifting away from the "e" in p/e, more to a question of maybe survivability in the community bank stocks, but certainly a greater emphasis placed on credit and capital. The p/e ratios have substantially taken a backseat to price to tangible book. Price to tangible book is a metric that people are focused on, and I think that's largely here to stay. I think particularly as we look at some of the smaller community banks, the capital markets window has been wide open at a discount, at a price, and clearly it's weighted on the other side by credit. Certainly, there are many different ways to get capital. We've seen huge access in the form of stock raises, which has been fantastic, and to a lesser extent, we've seen a very small amount of M&A activity. But I think what's important here as we look going forward, we've seen a continued lift in bank stock prices. Even on a year-to-date basis, community banks are up about 20%, and stock price increases translate directly to acquisition currency. And so we may see more premium M&A deals in select markets, especially the Northeast. Certainly not most markets. Most markets will be hallmarked by the FDIC deals, so there's no need for banks to necessarily pay premiums. But in the Northeast and particularly New England, I think we're more apt to see fewer FDIC deals, which will translate into premium deals to the extent that an acquirer wants to grow.
Tickers included in this excerpt: BARI, CBNK, DNBK, ESSA, OCFC, ROME, TBNK, UBNK, WFD
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