Although we’re still in the middle of the worst financial crisis in decades, a few select banks are positioned to make a boatload of profits. And if you pick the right ones, gains of 100% or more are easily within reach.

If you think the U.S. economy is descending into a bottomless pit, hold off. But if you’re reasonably optimistic long-term, these banks are well worth considering for income-oriented investors.

After receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded federal bailout money, the biggest U.S. banks say they can’t track how that money is being spent. Some of the banks are outright refusing to discuss the matter, a new study has found.

The 116 banks that are receiving billions in taxpayer-provided bailout money this year actually paid out $1.6 billion in compensation and benefits to their top executives last year – even though the results at some of these institutions were so poor that they would soon have to turn to Washington for a government-engineered rescue.

As expected, U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers slashed a benchmark interest rate yesterday (Tuesday). But they cut it by a bigger-than-expected amount, and did so in an unconventional manner.

In the currency market, the dollar took a pounding from the euro. Late Monday, the euro was trading at $1.2943 vs. $1.2696 on Friday.

The U.S. Treasury Department plans to borrow a record $550 billion in the current quarter, and another $368 billion in the first three months of the New Year – money needed to fund the $700 billion bailout plan the government is using to battle the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Wall Street bond traders estimate that the U.S. government will have to borrow a record $1.4 trillion during the current fiscal year – an unprecedented amount of debt that’s nevertheless needed to cover a federal budget deficit that’s expected to approach $1 trillion for the fiscal year, CNNMoney.com reported.

(The government’s fiscal year differs from the calendar year, and actually began Oct. 1. The $700 billion bailout plan was approved by the…

The U.S. government yesterday (Tuesday) announced plans to invest $250 billion, more than a third of the $700 billion congressional bailout allotment, into nine of America’s largest banks in an effort to bolster confidence in the financial system. Similar to steps taken by European governments earlier this week, the government will guarantee new debt and take equity stakes in the participating banks.

U.S. stocks yesterday (Monday) staged their biggest rally since the Great Depression – with the Dow Jones Industrial Average soaring an all-time record 936 points – on a Federal Reserve-led push to flood the ailing global financial system with dollars and on a U.S. government plan to buy stakes in banks.

Crude oil for July delivery traded at an all-time high of $139.12 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange today (Friday), after the U.S. dollar nosedived on speculation that the European Central Bank would raise its key lending rate and on worries that a bigger-than-expected spike in unemployment meant the U.S. economy was far weaker than feared.