NYSE: CS
Price: $68
52-week low: $50
52-week high: $69
P/E ratio: 12
Yield: 3.4%

Our next pick, Credit Suisse, is well known in the U.S. as a major player in investment banking, but back home in Switzerland, says Putnam's Byrne, it has long played second fiddle to UBS because of the latter's dominance in wealth management. Now that's changing: Credit Suisse sold its slow-growth insurance business, Winterthur, to AXA for $10 billion this summer and is focusing on its own wealth management business while boosting margins at its U.S. investment bank. The Zurich giant has also launched an aggressive stock-buyback program, with the goal of snapping up nearly $2 billion of its stock, or 3% of outstanding shares, by next April.

Like our energy-sector recommendations, Credit Suisse is also reasonably priced, trading at 10.9 times forward earnings, compared with P/E multiples of 12.6 for UBS and 11 to 12 times earnings for U.S. investment banks, according to Citigroup analyst Jeremy Sigee. In November, Sigee upped his rating on Credit Suisse from hold to buy, while increasing his target price to $75. With Credit Suisse currently trading at $67 - and boasting a 2.8% dividend - you're looking at a potential gain of nearly 15%. Not bad for a typically conservative Swiss bank.