“Five of the 10 best-performing exchange traded funds in the first quarter were propelled by financial firms. The SPDR KBW Bank ETF (NYSE: KBE), which tracks the KBW Bank Index, returned 22%.  The ETF holds large commercial and regional banks including Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Citigroup (NYSE: C), Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) and JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM). The index has retraced about a third of its loss since its February 2007 peak,” Kevin Baker Reports From The Street.

Billy Fisher From Investopedia wrote that, “The SPDR KBW Bank ETF (NYSE: KBE) also finished a big month in which it rose 10.6%. The big news out of the sector is that the Treasury Department is readying itself to unwind its position in Citigroup (NYSE: C) in the coming months. Citigroup accounts for 7.3% of KBE’s total weight.”
 

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Baker went on to say, “Still, proposed financial-regulation reforms are creating uncertainty for the current quarter. A bank tax and a limit on risk-taking could crimp profits. Now that the Obama administration has pushed through health-care reform, the president is setting his sights on banks, which rankled Americans because they paid for the bailout in 2008 only to watch the biggest companies produce near-record profits a year later.”

However, TheStreet.com’s senior banking analyst, Philip van Doorn, says that, “based on analysts’ projections for ‘normalized earnings’ and where valuations were before the credit crisis began, most bank stocks appear to be cheap despite the run-up.” He said it’s a “great time to go into the sector as it rises along with the economy.”

We put together some more details on the SPDR KBW Bank ETF (KBE) including some of the companies within the ETF below:

The investment ETF (KBE) seeks to replicate the performance of the KBW Bank index. The fund uses a passive management strategy designed to track the total return performance of the Bank index. It is nondiversified.

TOP 10 HOLDINGS ( 58.89% OF TOTAL ASSETS)

Company Symbol % Assets Bank of America Corporation Com (BAC) 8.98 Citigroup, Inc. Common Stock (C) 7.30 Wells Fargo & Company Common St (WFC) 7.19 U.S. Bancorp Common Stock (USB) 6.55 JP Morgan Chase & Co. Common St (JPM) 6.52 M&T Bank Corporation Common Sto (MTB) 4.72 Regions Financial Corporation C (RF) 4.58 Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB) 4.44 SunTrust Banks, Inc. Common Sto (STI) 4.32 BB&T Corporation Common Stock (BBT) 4.29

NYSE:KBE