Morningstar ETF of the year

I hope I won't start making a habit of this, but it's been a long time between the last three posts! In my defense, there hasn't been much happening financially for me. I have been dabbling in some small shares of our local bank, Central Pacific Financial (NYSE: CPF), but it's a penny stock and is just a total gamble to help me muddle through this stagnant bull market. Again, CPF is purely for entertainment, even though I'm up 32% since buying in early March, I don't count this as a real stock pick, esp since it represents less than .3% of my total portfolio!

My latest, serious, stock pick is an ETF. It's called SPDR KBW Regional Banking (NYSE: KRE). Morningstar has deemed this the top ETF of 2010 and they do make some strong buying points. Regional banking has been lagging behind the bigger national banks, so it's about time they "catch up". Also, it's rumored that now that the bigger banks are healthier, we may see more Federal bailout monies trickling down to the smaller lenders. Hopefully this is so and we'll see multi-bagger gains on the sector. I've already initiated my second "third", since my first position was already up 15% and I don't see a downward trend anytime soon.