The news for the banks was bad. Some investors see opportunity.

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If you take a quick look at the headlines for most of the past week, it might look as if no one wants to invest in banks, least of all the smaller regional banks.

But every market is made up of buyers and sellers — and in the recent turmoil, some investors have spotted opportunities. For example, Ken Griffin Castle has collected a 5.3% stake in

Western Alliance Bancorp

(Stock ticker: WAL), whose stock fell 37% last week.

Citadel isn’t alone in feeling bullish about buying banks. said Abbott Cooper, founder of Driver Management, a longtime investor in small and regional banks Barron That some of the microfinance banks in his portfolio are looking at the drama of the past week, which included the Silicon Valley bank collapse and bailout

The first republic

(FRC), as a “non-event” for their business. Some of these banks even saw an outflow of deposits.

Cooper, for one, loves his Oklahoma-based

Bank First

(BANF), in part because only 38% of its deposits are uninsured and 30% of the shares are owned by the Rainbolt family, who still run the bank. Trading at 2.2 times book value, the stock looks a little more expensive than its peers, but BancFirst’s valuation is down a bit from its recent highs.

Cooper is also optimistic that the recent market turmoil may give banks an opportunity to put their balance sheets in order. The decline in the value of Treasury bonds due to higher Federal Reserve rates means that many banks are incurring huge unrealized losses. But the recent flight to safety and the expectation that the Fed will change course has sent yields down and prices rising.

“I think a lot of banks are taking advantage of this to rearrange their bond portfolios,” he says.

write to Carleton English at [email protected]