MOST READ: Best Banks Not Best Buys

Many large publicly traded bank holding companies that have posted decent earnings during 2008 still don't look like particularly attractive stocks right now, once you look under the hood.

The federal government's bailout of Citigroup (C Quote) on Monday lifted financial stocks across the board. The more gentle terms for investors, following punitive bailout efforts for Fannie Mae (FNM Quote), Freddie Mac (FRE Quote), convinced some that now is a good time to dip a big toe in the water and look for potential bargains among holding companies that have managed to hold things together.

Banks have taken a beating this year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Tuesday announced another bad quarter for bank and thrift earnings, with a combined $1.7 billion in net income for the industry for the third quarter, compared to $5 billion in the second quarter, and $28.7 billion in the third quarter of 2007.

Not surprisingly, the main factor in the earnings decline was higher provisions for loan loss reserves, with securities losses running a close second.

The FDIC's "watch list" of troubled institutions grew to 171 from 117 the previous quarter. TheStreet.com recently discussed some of these companies, along with industry losses from preferred stock investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when we looked at significantly undercapitalized banks.

But even the banks that have best weathered the storm so far sport unattractive price-to-earnings ratios and potentially worrisome exposure to risky securities.

Strongest earnings among large banks

Before listing the large publicly traded holding companies with the best year-to-date earnings performance through the third quarter, here are a few quick points about the data:

• Only bank holding companies are included, since thrift holding companies are not required to file uniform financial statements with the Federal Reserve.
• The data are based on preliminary holding company financial statements, as provided by Highline Financial, Inc., on Nov. 25. The data are subject to revision.
• Capital ratios in the second table don't reflect any capital infusions from the Treasury's Troubled Assets Relief Program.