A rose is a rose is a rose. Thank you Gertrude Stein for that observation. But a bank is not a bank is not a bank. That's because not all banks are serving the same market, nor are they all offering the same loans. If you're going to invest in banks, be sure you understand who they're lending to and what kind of loans they have on the books.

The first group of banks is community banks. As you might guess, they serve specific communities, usually within a fairly narrow geographic region. They rely on that region for their deposits with which they'll make loans, and loan demand. In other words, they serve a well-defined community. They know all the neighbors, participate in the local activities, have a high profile, hopefully do good things for a community.

Last week we witnessed a parade of bank CEOs appear before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The commission was formed by Congress last year to probe the financial meltdown of 2008 and determine its causes.

The commission is headed by Phil Angelides who said that part of the commission's aim is to "make this a story that's not just academic but a real story" that describes "the actions of individuals and institutions," the Wall Street Journal reported.

The commission intends to use subpoena powers to obtain information from both the private and public sectors about the details of the meltdown to add to its bite.

One of the true icons of finance, Goldman Sachs Group (GS), issued its Q4 report this morning. The stock has been weak off the numbers; at the time of this writing, shares were down well over 5%, and volume was very active. Looking through the press release, I didn't come away as bearish as the market. Then again, the session as a whole was rather choppy, so perhaps overall sentiment was exerting an influence. Still, a 5% sell-off is notable.

Let's look at some highlights. For the fourth quarter, Goldman, whose colleagues include JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Morgan Stanley (MS), made $8.20 per share. Last year at this time, the company reported a loss of $4.97 per share. Besides improving year-over-year, per-share profit increased over 50% on a sequential basis as well. According to Earnings.com, $5.20 was the number to beat.

A political issue that's there for the taking; i.e. one that either political party, the Democratic or Republican parties, could win votes on? The need to charter and capitalize new, small/mid-sized banks. (It's an issue that the Tea Party movement could make some hay on, also.)

The financial crisis is over, but the credit squeeze continues, and small and medium-sized businesses have borne a great deal of it, with many still unable to secure the credit they need to expand their operations, despite rising demand.

British and Dutch investors turned to Iceland a few years ago, attracted by savings account deposit rates that were competitive with equity investment returns. It was an amazing situation, and the money just seemed too easy.

Then, Iceland got the sort of IMF loan that is normally reserved for countries like Somalia, and the Brits and Dutch worried that they'd never get their money back from an investment as supposedly safe as a savings account.

Notice the headline is a question, not a statement. If I knew exactly what would happen in 2010, I wouldn't write anymore -- I'd just invest accordingly. But I don't know (nor does anyone) what will happen exactly in the next 12 months. However, there are economic signals that can give all of us some good guesses. Here are mine.

In a case of buy low, sell high, Kuwait's sovereign wealth fund just unloaded its $4.1 billion stake in Citigroup (C). In doing so, the fund scored a $1 billion profit -- and a 37% rate of return on its investment -- according to the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA).

The fund invested in Citigroup in January 2008, before the financial industry came to the brink of collapse last year, but well after the impact of the mortgage crisis had been identified. The fund also invested $2 billion in Merrill Lynch, which was acquired by Bank of America (BAC) in September 2008.