This paper examines the common factors that drive the returns of U.S. bank holding companies from 1997 to 2005. We … that the market factor clearly dominates in explaining bank returns, followed by the Fama-French factors. The bank … tend to load in the same direction on the first component. Relative to the returns of large firms in other sectors, bank …

financial assets. If the U.S. banking system is more competitive, this questions whether an increase in bank competition will …