Historically, tumultuous times offer some of the best opportunities to buy stocks, and the market's current mess surely qualifies. The financial sector is one of the last areas investors are looking to for opportunities, but some still see many reasons to consider buying shares of major bank Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC).

In our Motley Fool CAPS community, 4,156 investors have given a bullish or bearish opinion on Wells Fargo. Poring through the detailed information packed in pitches and other comments, I've dug up three of the top reasons why many members consider the stock a buy today:

1. Strong earnings: Wells Fargo pulled in not-so-surprising strong first-quarter earnings and analysts foresee a healthy second quarter as well. While almost all other stress-tested banks, like Regions Financial (NYSE:RF), chose to rely solely on issued shares and asset sales to meet government capital requirements, many investors expect Wells Fargo to rely on its earnings to fill in its remaining capital buffer requirements, rather than further tap the capital markets.

2. Money for cheap: Wells Fargo’s history of accessing low-cost capital, compared to competitors like Citigroup (NYSE:C) or Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), and its strong mortgage business have kept it in a good position throughout the downturn. The bank’s ability to use cheap capital to generate strong net interest margins has kept Berkshire Hathaway’s (NYSE:BRK-A) Warren Buffett bullish on the company.

3. Expanding business: Wells Fargo plans to grow beyond its retail banking roots and into the securities business that it inherited from the acquisition of Wachovia last year. Earnings reports from JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) have recently shown there's gold to be had in investment banking, as capital markets have stabilized and a large number of companies have raised equity in recent months. If it continues, investment banking could be a significant new source of revenue.     

Of course, there's a lot more devil in the details of these buy-side opinions, which is why CAPS is such a great resource to check and balance your own analysis. You can read the bullish and bearish sides to every stock. To see what the very best CAPS members are saying now about Wells Fargo, just click on over to Motley Fool CAPS and have a look -- it's all free, and your opinion's welcome, too.

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