We recently published an article titled Why These 15 Financial Services Stocks Are Surging In 2025. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Ohio Valley Banc Corp. (NASDAQ:OVBC) stands against the other financial services stocks.

The financial services sector has entered 2025 on a wave of strong performance and renewed investor interest. This sector consists of banking, payments, insurance, and asset management and is a cornerstone of the global economy.

These stocks didn’t do too well during the 2022 downturn, as there was uncertainty regarding whether or not the Federal Reserve would bail out regional banks. However, after the “mini banking crisis” calmed down, these stocks have performed quite well despite the macro trends being uncertain. And for some stocks, that momentum has been even stronger so far this year. It’s worth looking at why.

Even during bear markets, there are pockets of the market that perform exceptionally well. For example, I identified 15 Real Estate Stocks that are up the Most in 2025 in another article.

Methodology

For this article, I screened the best-performing financial services stocks year-to-date.

I will also mention the number of hedge fund investors in these stocks. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

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Ohio Valley Banc Corp. (NASDAQ:OVBC)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q4 2024: 3

Ohio Valley Banc Corp. (NASDAQ:OVBC) operates as the bank holding company for The Ohio Valley Bank Company, providing commercial and consumer banking, mortgage, and financial services in southern Ohio and western West Virginia.

The stock has soared in 2025, primarily on the back of its Q1 2025 earnings report released in late April. OVBC reported net income of $4.4 million, a 57.8% increase from the prior year, with earnings per share jumping to $0.94 from $0.58.

The company’s return on average assets rose to 1.20%, and return on average equity reached 11.82%. The surge in profitability was driven by a $1.95 million increase in net interest income, which resulted from growth in average earning assets and improved net interest margin.

A key factor behind the asset and deposit growth was participation in the Ohio Homebuyer Plus program, which brought in $7.7 million in new accounts and $82 million in deposits from the Ohio Treasurer at subsidized rates. OVBC also announced a dividend increase to $0.23 per share.

Ohio Valley Banc Corp. (NASDAQ:OVBC) stock is up 52.92% year-to-date.

Overall OVBC ranks 10th on our list of the financial services stocks that are surging in 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of OVBC as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than OVBC but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

 

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

 

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.