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.