Eight more banks failed last week, bringing the 2010 total to 50. Three of the failures were in Florida, and two were in California. Massachusetts, Michigan and Washington had one bank failure each.

In Florida, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took over Riverside National Bank, First Federal Bank of North Florida and AmericanFirst Bank. TD Bank Financial Group a division of Canadian company TD Bank (TD) took the deposits and nearly all the assets of each. Riverside National had $3.4 billion in assets, with First Federal at $393.3 million and AmericanFirst at $90.5 million.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says some really good things are happening, but you wouldn't know it from reading the headlines.

You want to shoot yourself when you read these headlines. "Local Banks Face Big Losses," is the lead story in The Wall Street Journal, a fomented survey story telling us that commercial lending is going to sink local and community banks under a pile of $100 billion in bad loans.

This is news?

So what!

A bank stock? In this market? Sure, if it's a community-oriented bank, such as People's Bank.

People's United Financial, Inc. (Nasdaq: PBCT) is a community-based bank that operates more than 300 branches in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire.

In addition to traditional banking activities, People's provides specialized services tailored to specific markets, including personal, institutional, and employee benefits as well as cash management, and municipal banking and finance.

Analysts see a 10-12% increase in loan growth in 2007, and 9-11% revenue growth overall: a similar performance is expected in 2008. Meanwhile, most importantly, asset quality remains good -- no small consideration in today's beleaguered mortgage market.

Analysts also like the fact that People's will likely use new capital to expand its operations outside its Connecticut base. The Reuters FY 2008/FY 2009 EPS consensus estimates for PBCT are $0.82 to $1.02.

The First Call mean rating for PBCT is: Buy [9 firms]. Mean 2008 target: $20 [high: $23, low: $17].

Stock Analysis: People's Bank is a moderate-risk stock not suitable for low-risk investors. Investors with an investment horizon longer than 2 years should be rewarded from PBCT's shares. Sell/Stop Loss if you were to purchase shares in this company: $8.

Disclosure: Lazzaro has no positions in stocks. In addition to private real estate holdings, he owns corporate and municipal bonds, and cash certificates of deposit.

MOST NOTEWORTHY: Chittenden Corp (CHZ), Digital River (DRIV), Image Entertainment (DISK) and Foot Locker (FL) were today's noteworthy downgrades:

• Chittenden Corp (NYSE: CHZ) was downgraded to Sell from Hold at AG Edwards based on the buyout news from People's United Financial (PBCT).

• Digital River (NASDAQ: DRIV) was downgraded to Hold from Buy, and its target was cut to $44, at Jeffries based on the weak Microsoft (MSFT) ramp and weakness in the Symantec (SYMC) transition.

• SMH Capital downgraded shares of Image Entertainment (NASDAQ: DISK) to Sell from Neutral and recommends investors take profits on the upside and sell shares.

• Foot Locker (NYSE: FL) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Matrix, as the firm believes fundamentals trends are turning negative; the firm sees limited upside from current levels.

OTHER DOWNGRADES:

• Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ: BBBY) was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Raymond James.

• Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) was removed from Goldman Sachs' Americas Conviction Buy List.

• Web.com (NASDAQ: WWWW) was downgraded to Hold from Buy at Roth Capital Partners.

• Andrew Corp (NASDAQ: ANDW) was downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Oppenheimer.

• JP Morgan downgraded shares of SkyWest (NASDAQ: SKYW) to Underweight from Overweight and shares of Republic Airways Holdings (NASDAQ: RJET) to Neutral from Overweight.

Analyst summaries provided by TheFlyOnTheWall.com (subscription required).