Industry insiders interested in sector ETFs may want to take a look at the Tuesday Wall Street Journal "Fund Track" column. Regional banking ETFs are performing well this year, even better than funds investing in the general financial sector, John Spence reports.

For example, the SPDR KBW Regional Banking ETF is up 8.6 percent this year, beating both the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, which is down 1.6 percent, and the fund's broad market counterpart, the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund, down 5.6 percent, according to data from FactSet Research.

While regional bank funds have been performing well for the past few months, the gap between regional and large banks has become more proficient recently with the fear surrounding new legislative proposals. Last Thursday, Obama revealed his desire to limit the size of large banks and their trading activity, causing a sudden 200 point drop on the Dow Jones Industrial.

Regional banks are also safer investments, as they come with less credit risk. In the 2008 market catastrophe, the SPDR KBW Regional Banking ETF lost 18 percent, while the Financial Select ETF fell 55 percent. 

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