With the Financial Select Sector SPDR (AMEX:XLF) down 31% over the past year, it goes without saying that financial stocks haven't been getting much love lately. But keep in mind that the healthy companies no one wants to touch often prove that ugly stocks make great opportunities.

With that in mind, I used our new CAPS screening tool to find the most attractive stocks in the financial sector.

They also have:

  • Market capitalizations greater than $1 billion.
  • At least 300 active picks.
  • Five-star ratings, the highest possible, from our CAPS community.

Remember, in the first year for which we have data, CAPS' five-star companies outperformed the market with an average gain of nearly 28%.

Company

Share Price

Market Cap (in billions)

AFLAC (NYSE:AFL)

$66.23

$31.5

Banco Bradesco

$23.00

$70.6

Banco Itau (NYSE:ITU)

$27.96

$67.0

CapitalSource (NYSE:CSE)

$14.94

$3.5

E-House

$16.27

$1.3

ICICI Bank (NYSE:IBN)

$42.45

$23.6

Lloyds TSB

$32.67

$46.0

Markel (NYSE:MKL)

$405.99

$4.0

National Bank of Greece

$10.57

$25.2

NYSE Euronext (NYSE:NYX)

$70.61

$18.7

Data from Motley Fool CAPS and Yahoo! Finance as of May 13.

Of course, screens are merely a first step in the stock-selection process. Discerning the dappled from the truly hideous requires due diligence. Come and join us on Motley Fool CAPS to dig into these companies further. Let our 100,000-strong (and counting) CAPS community help you polish your portfolio.

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