Regions: Financial Winner (Update 1)

Regions Financial's stock has now returned 56% year-to-date, following a 38% decline in 2011.

Interested in more on Regions Financial? See TheStreet Ratings' report card for this stock.

The shares trade for eight times the consensus 2013 EPS estimate of 77 cents, among analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. The consensus 2012 EPS estimate is 61 cents.

After selling its Morgan Keegan brokerage subsidiary and completing a $900 million common share offering during the first quarter, Regions in early April repaid $3.5 billion in government bailout funds received during 2008 through the Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP.

Goldman Sachs analyst Ryan on June 13 upgraded Regions to a "Buy" rating, with a price target of $8/00, calling that the Birmingham, Ala., lender, along with SunTrust (STI) of Atlanta, "two interesting ways to gain exposure to this given their concentrations in some of the hardest-hit markets in the Southeast."

The analyst maintained his neutral rating on SunTrust, since the company's mortgage loan "putbacks remain unpredictable," and because of "outsized margin pressure," with an estimated 27 basis point narrowing of the company's net interest margin this year.