This could be one of the best buys for 2015

Despite efforts by the Fed and regulators to scale back risk-taking, bank stocks are near their highest levels since the financial crisis in 2008. And according to the charts, they could go even higher.

The ETF tracking the financials (trading under the ticker symbol XLF) is up 13 percent year to date, about 2 percentage points higher than the S&P 500. Morgan Stanley, PNC, SunTrust, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo are among the more than two dozen companies in the sector trading within 1 percent of their 52-week highs.

“We like the financials a lot,” said Ari Wald, head of technical analysis at Oppenheimer & Co. “It’s actually one of our favorite ideas for 2015. The reason we like it is that we are finally starting to see some signs of relative improvement versus the overall market.”

Wald came to that conclusion by charting the XLF’s price relative price to the S&P 500. That’s done by dividing the sector by the broad market index; when the chart rises, the XLF is outperforming the market.

“Over the last year, it has traded in line with the market,” he said. “Now we’re starting to break above some downtrend resistance lines. We see this as a fresh inflection. We think that this sector is really in position to lead the market higher looking out longer term.”

The XLF will have meaningful upside after years of underperforming the market, said Wald.

“If you’re to generate alpha, if you’re looking to beat the benchmark, if you’re benchmarked against the S&P 500, [then] this is a sector you have to be in,” he recommended. “We’d like to buy the XLF here. We think it’s going higher, not only on a relative basis but on an absolute basis, too.”

The fundamentals back up the technicals, according to Gina Sanchez, founder of Chantico Global.

“The outlook is strong and I think that will continue as profitability increases,” said Sanchez, a CNBC contributor.

Like Wald, she sees financials performing better than the rest of the market next year. Sanchez cites S&P Capital IQ estimates that have the financial sector’s earnings rising 12.7 percent versus the entire S&P 500’s anticipated earnings growth of 8.8 percent.

“And if you’re expecting interest rates to rise anytime soon, that only helps net interest margins,” adds Sanchez. “These are all good things for banks.”