Mar. 17--Wall Street seemed like a beauty contest turned upside down last week when it came to bank stocks. Wallflowers became darlings, and more attractive banks saw only superficial nods.

The bump lifted Citigroup Inc. shares a whopping 72.8 percent after its embattled CEO said there remained a core bank capable of posting a profit.

Bank of America Corp. shares gained 83.4 percent. Other large money-center institutions also saw big gains.

The benefit to owners of local names was by comparison muted.

Commerce Bancshares Inc. gained 13.6 percent, UMB Financial Corp. rose 19.5 percent, and Capitol Federal Financial managed only a 5.8 percent climb.

The Nasdaq Bank Index, which covers regional and community banks, rose 15 percent last week, and the KBW Bank Index, which focuses more on the biggest names, jumped 37 percent.

Equity analyst Ben Crabtree with Stifel Nicolaus & Co. Inc. explained: "The money centers are the ones that have bounced the most, probably because they're the ones most in the crosshairs on the issues -- the toxic assets and things like that.

"If there's some hope that the government will possibly come up with a program that does something about taking those toxic assets off the books," Crabtree said, "they'd have the biggest stones lifted off their backs."

And the market seems to find faith from several other possibilities, he said.

There is talk of putting "more rational values" on the securities weighing down the big banks, he said. Expectations of a government takeover of banks -- nationalization -- have ebbed somewhat.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner "might finally come up with a real plan" to take toxic assets off banks' hands "where everyone wouldn't be sitting looking at them and wondering if they're going to go out of business," Crabtree said.

The consolation prize is that shares of Commerce, UMB, Capitol Federal and their kind haven't been bludgeoned like the big banks.

Citigroup and Bank of America surged more partly because their stocks have been pushed to what Crabtree called "remarkably low valuations."

But he added: "They've been beaten down for a reason."

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