Banking Giants: As the global economy continues to expand over the coming decades, businesses will have to be financed and consumers will need credit. The banking industry has also been consolidating, putting more power in the hands of industry giants, particularly Bank of America, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase.

Moreover, these stocks now look timely, trading at less than 12 times earnings projected for 2007 and yielding at least 3%. Nothing gets your long-term results off to a better start than buying low.

As an added attraction, the banks stand to benefit from from an improving interest-rate environment. For the first time in more than two years, the Fed recently let a meeting pass without raising interest rates. And with the economy likely to slow in the second half, it's unlikely that short-term interest rates will go much higher and possible that they will soon start coming down. Declining short-term rates give financial stocks a major boost as long as they aren't overly dependent on mortgage business, according to research by the Leuthold Group, an institutional investment adviser.

The major banks all have similar investing outlooks, but I lean toward J.P. Morgan Chase. Today's bank is the result of a string of acquisitions since 1990 that have yet to fully pay off.

CEO Jamie Dimon is pushing to bring returns closer to the industry average. Whatever success he achieves will likely mean superior performance for J.P. Morgan compared with other major banks.