When the biggest U.S. banks became embattled with toxic assets and legal headaches, many investors turned to smaller, regional bank stocks. Despite being smaller in size, many of these banks have been the best performing financial stocks over the past 30 years.

In this segment of The Motley Fool's financials-focused show, Where the Money Is, banking analysts David Hanson and Matt Koppenheffer rank five regional bank stocks. The guys rank the following:

  • Regions Financial (RF 0.18%)
  • PNC (PNC 0.15%)
  • Huntington Bancshares (HBAN 0.06%)
  • BB&T (TFC -0.47%)
  • M&T Bank
  • U.S. Bancorp (USB 0.28%)