Top 5 Regional Bank Stocks To Invest In Right Now

During bank-earnings season, the Big Four U.S. banks typically dominate the headlines:

"Bank of America Gets Down to Business" -- The Wall Street Journal

"JPMorgan Continues Strong Earnings Run" -- Zacks.com

"Citigroup Profit Jump 42% on Stronger Markets" -- Reuters

However, some regional banks are posting more impressive numbers and flying under the radar. In this video, Motley Fool banking analyst David Hanson discusses recent results from PNC Financials Services (NYSE: PNC  ) , KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY  ) , and Huntington Bancshares (NASDAQ: HBAN  ) .

Many investors are terrified about investing in both big and smaller regional banking stocks after the crash, but the sector has a few notable stand-outs. In a sea of mismanaged and dangerous peers, one rises above as "The Only Big Bank Built to Last." You can uncover the top pick that some of the world's best investors love in The Motley Fool's�new report. It's free, so click here to access it now.

Best Telecom Companies To Invest In Right Now: Under Armour Inc.(UA)

Under Armour, Inc. develops, markets, and distributes performance apparel, footwear, and accessories for men, women, and youth primarily in the United States, Canada, and internationally. It offers products made from moisture-wicking synthetic fabrics designed to regulate body temperature and enhance performance regardless of weather conditions. The company provides its products in three fit types: compression (tight fitting), fitted (athletic cut), and loose (relaxed) extending across the sporting goods, outdoor, and active lifestyle markets. Its footwear offerings comprise football, baseball, lacrosse, softball, and soccer cleats; slides; performance training footwear; and running footwear. The company also provides baseball batting, football, golf, and running gloves, as well as licenses bags, socks, headwear, custom-molded mouth guards, and eyewear that are designed to be used and worn before, during, and after competition. Under Armour sells its products through retai l stores, as well as directly to consumers through its own retail outlets and specialty stores, Website, and catalogs. The company was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Will Ashworth]

  Competition: Glenn Murphy, Kevin Plank, and Mark Parker are staring opportunity in the face. The CEOs of Gap (GPS), Under Armour (UA) and Nike (NKE) have never had a better chance to pull the rug out from Lululemon stock. Of the three, Gap is best positioned to continue grabbing market share from LULU with its Athleta stores catering to the same market but with slightly lower price points. Under Armour is firing on all cylinders at the moment, and you can never write off Nike — the old faithful of sporting goods stocks. With this much competition, LULU stock valuations still seem high.

• [By Mark Lin]

  It is an open secret that most of our branded shoes are manufactured in China because of lower labor costs. However, China's position as a global low-cost production hub could change in the future as the nation faces inflationary wage pressures. Footwear and apparel brands like Nike (NYSE: NKE  ) , VF Corp (NYSE: VFC  ) and Under Armour (NYSE: UA  ) are seeking alternative ways of staying cost competitive in light of such trends.

• [By Alex Planes]

  Dick's interactive "store within a store" concept gives a unique and distinct feel to each department. When you're looking for golf stuff, for example you can visit a dedicated Golf Pro Shop. It's a superior in-store experience compared to big-box competitors, and some of the company's other brand partnerships also provide Dick's with the unique opportunity to offer exclusive product to their customers. Nike (NYSE: NKE  ) and Under Armour (NYSE: UA  ) both take advantage of having their own block of space within Dick's locations. This not only provides customers the opportunity to really evaluate the relative worth of each brand across a wide range of products, but it also gives Dick's a way to upsell its status-conscious buyers on the latest $50 compression shirt or $150 spring-loaded pair of shoes.
  
  Dick's also rose to the top of the sporting-goods list because of its convenient locations, competitive prices and focused approach on reaching out to digital consumers through social media and apps. Dick's app has a built-in GPS that automatically helps consumers find the nearest store. You'd think this would be the first thing built into any retailer's mobile apps, but a surprising number of companies overlook or marginalize such a simple function.

• [By Ben Levisohn]

  Retail has not been a great place to be, but JPMorgan sees stability in athletic wear–and that means better times for Nike (NKE) and Under Armour (UA).

Top 5 Regional Bank Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Copano Energy L.L.C.(CPNO)

Copano Energy, L.L.C. provides midstream services to natural gas producers in the United States. The company?s services include natural gas gathering, compression, dehydration, treating, marketing, transportation, processing, and fractionation. It owns and operates natural gas gathering and intrastate transportation pipeline assets; natural gas processing and fractionation facilities; and natural gas liquid (NGL) pipelines in Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Louisiana. The company operates approximately 6,800 miles of natural gas gathering and transmission pipelines; and 10 natural gas processing plants with approximately 1 billion cubic feet per day of combined processing capacity. It also operates 380 miles of NGL pipelines. The company serves third-party pipelines, distribution companies, power generation facilities, and industrial customers. Copano Energy, L.L.C. was founded in 2001 and is based in Houston, Texas.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Eric Volkman]

  Copano Energy (NASDAQ: CPNO  ) is keeping its quarterly dividend steady, handing out $0.575 per unit on April 26 to holders of record as of April 22, the company announced this week. The company has disbursed the same amount every quarter since the beginning of 2009.

Top 5 Regional Bank Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Stereotaxis Inc.(STXS)

Stereotaxis, Inc. designs, manufactures, and markets cardiology instrument control systems for use in a hospital?s interventional surgical suite or interventional lab for the treatment of arrhythmias and coronary artery diseases in the United States and internationally. The company provides Niobe system, which includes Niobe Magnetic Navigation System that navigates catheters, guidewires, and other delivery devices through complex paths in the blood vessels and chambers of the heart to carry out treatment; Navigant, a user interface or physician control center, which physicians use to visualize and track procedures and to provide instrument control commands that govern the motion of the working tip of the catheter, guidewire, or other interventional device; Cardiodrive, a catheter advancement system to remotely advance and retract the catheter in the patient?s heart. It also offers Odyssey enterprise solutions, which provides information solutions to manage, control, rec ord, and share procedures across networks; acquires remote view of the lab capturing synchronized procedure data for review of important events during cases; and review recorded cases and create snapshots following procedures for clinical reporting, auditing, and presentation. In addition, the company provides disposable interventional devices comprising automated catheters, coronary guidewires, and navigation and ablation systems. It markets its products through its direct sales force, distributors, and sales agents. The company was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Bryan Murphy]

  Look out Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG), and step aside BioTelemetry Inc. (NASDAQ:BEAT). There's a new cardiac name in town, and its name is Stereotaxis Inc. (NASDAQ:STXS). This small company's stock is soaring today on the heels of encouraging news, though the prompt for the stock's strength has been brewing for quite some time. This nudge for STXS, however, may well mean it has a lot more potential than ISRG or BEAT do for the foreseeable future.

• [By Roberto Pedone]

  One under-$10 health care player that looks poised for a potentially large move higher is Stereotaxis (STXS), which designs, manufactures and markets an advanced cardiology instrument control system for use in a hospital's interventional surgical suite to enhance the treatment of arrhythmias and coronary artery disease. This stock has been on fire so far in 2013, with shares up big by 43%.

  If you take a look at the chart for Stereotaxis, you'll notice that this stock has formed a major bottom pattern over the last three months, since this stock has found buying interest each time it has pulled back towards $3.50 and $3.10 a share. Buyers have stepped in at those levels and have not let the sellers pressure STXS lower. Shares of STXS are now starting to spike higher today right off its 50-day moving average of $3.59 a share. That spike is quickly pushing shares of STXS within range of triggering a big breakout trade above a key downtrend line.

  Traders should now look for long-biased trades in STXS if it manages to break out above some near-term overhead resistance at $4 a share with high volume. Look for a sustained move or close above that level with volume that hits near or above its three-month average action of 1.98 million shares. If that breakout triggers soon, then STXS will set up to re-test or possibly take out its next major overhead resistance levels at $5 to $6.24 a share. Any high-volume move above $6.24 a share will then give STXS a chance to re-fill some of its previous gap down zone from August that started at $10 a share.

  Traders can look to buy STXS off any weakness to anticipate that breakout and simply use a stop that sits right below those key support levels at $3.50 to $3.10 a share. One can also buy STXS off strength once it clears $4 a share with volume and then simply use a stop that sits a comfortable percentage from your entry point.

Top 5 Regional Bank Stocks To Invest In Right Now: Petroquest Energy Inc(PQ)

PetroQuest Energy, Inc. operates as an independent oil and gas company. It engages in the acquisition, exploration, development, and operation of oil and gas properties in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas, as well as onshore and in the shallow waters offshore the Gulf Coast Basin. As of December 31, 2009, the company had estimated proved reserves of 1,931 thousand barrels of oil and 167,361 million cubic feet equivalent of natural gas. It owned working interests in 9 net producing oil wells and 277 net producing gas wells. PetroQuest Energy was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Advisors' Opinion:

• [By Nitish]

  PetroQuest Energy, Inc. (PQ) last month announced results for the second quarter of 2014. The following compares certain second quarter 2014 metrics to those of the second quarter of 2013, highlighting the company's continued growth driven by its successful drilling programs in Oklahoma and Texas, its acquisition of certain Gulf of Mexico assets in July 2013 ("Gulf of Mexico Acquisition") and stronger natural gas prices:

• [By Jon C. Ogg]

  PetroQuest Energy Inc. (NYSE: PQ) was downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at J.P. Morgan.

  Rubicon Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: RBCN) was downgraded to Underperform from Perform at Oppenheimer.