Stocks snapped their winning streak Thursday after soaring this week to new highs for the year.

Nearly a year after the federal rescue of the nation’s biggest banks, taxpayers have begun seeing profits from the hundreds of billions of dollars in aid, the New York Times reports.

The Home Valuation Code of Conduct is setting off a bitter battle. Mortgage brokers, lenders, real estate agents, regulators and appraisers are all arguing over whether an effort to fix one problem has created many new ones.

As Congress spent much of the last three months looking at ways to tighten regulations on financial institutions, some of the biggest bailout recipients increased their spending on influencing legislators.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has seized banks on 20 out of 28 Fridays this year, bringing the total to 52 bank failures in 2009, nearly double the amount in 2007 and 2008 combined.

Despite the tough economic times and increased scrutiny from Washington, banks are keeping most fees at record highs, and are eking out slight increases on others like overdraft charges, the New York Times reports.

President Obama's proposed financial reform has sparked a debate among lawmakers and members of the financial sector. Some argue that the plan's creation of a separate consumer protection agency will cause unnecessary confusion, while others say it  will give the Federal Reserve too much power. CNBC talked to the experts for their opinion on the proposal.

“I don’t think that it’s necessarily a disadvantage to be under TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) as much as it would be an advantage to move away from it,” said Richard Davis, president, chairman & CEO of U.S. Bancorp.

Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's on Wednesday cut ratings on 18 banks amid concern about further weakening in the financial sector.

Stock markets are just at the beginning of a larger rally which could see the major indexes jump another 20-to-30 percent and banks are the best bet, Michael Browne, portfolio manager from Sofaer Global Research, told CNBC.