Its abundance of resources and location on the Great Lakes have made Ontario an economic powerhouse. Canada's capital, Ottawa can be found there, as well as its largest city, Toronto, which is also Canada's financial hub. Seven of Ontario's eight largest companies are financial institutions, and Toronto is also the home of one of the largest stock exchanges in the world. When the Motley Fool took a look at stock investment opportunities in Ontario this past June, three of the companies they focused on were financial institutions: Royal Bank of Canada (NYSE: RY), Manulife Financial Corp. (NYSE: MFC) and Toronto-Dominion Bank (NYSE: TD). Considering the credit crunch and the weakness of the U.S. dollar, I thought it might be interesting to see how those companies are faring now.

The Royal Bank of Canada, also known as RBC Financial Group, is Canada's largest financial institution. It has 1,300 domestic locations and offices in 30 countries. In September, RBC's Gord Nixon won Canada's Outstanding CEO of the Year award for 2007. More recently, RBC announced the acquisition of a Caribbean bank, and it was one of four Canadian banks affected by restructuring at VISA. With RBC's five-year earnings per share growth rate of 26.5% (better than the S&P 500), the consensus recommendation of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial is to buy RBC, despite missing earnings expectations for the past two quarters. RBC's share price is near an all-time high on the NYSE, closing Thursday at $57.09 on the NYSE. RBC will release its next quarterly report on November 30.

Fastenal Company's (NASDAQ:FAST) reduction of its growth estimates for 2007 from 20.2% to 16.9% may not have been encouraging for some -- analysts at Robert W. Baird maintained a neutral rating but reduced the target price from $46 to $43 -- but Morningstar sees good things for the company.

Morningstar has selected FAST's Will Oberton as the CEO of the Year for 2006, on the basis of the company's financial track record, corporate governance, history of creating shareholder value, and growth potential.

A supplier of manufacturing and construction equipment and supplies, FAST got its start some 40 years ago as a producer of fasteners, and now has about 2,000 stores in North America. It has reported compounded earnings at almost 30% annually since its IPO in 1987, while generating returns on invested capital of more than 20%. And the company's share price has kept pace with its financials, also compounding at about 30%.

Oberton has been aggressive about improving FAST since he became CEO, with programs such as overhauling its stores to increase traffic and sales, to centralizing accounts-receivable collection and bringing more of the company's transportation needs in-house. Some of these initiatives have hurt the company's margins over the past few quarters, which may be why Wall Street soured on Fastenal a bit last year.

Besides FAST's long-term growth potential, Morningstar also picked Oberton for his model corporate stewardship, citing the company's superb financial disclosures, reasonable compensation, and minimal option issues. In short: he's not an overpaid, rock-star CEO.