The purpose of this study is to investigate the determinants of savings and loan profitability. Although considerable discussion has been devoted to studying the cyclical behavior of thrift institution profitability, there is a void with respect to the determinants of individual association profitability. This paper investigates whether performance variations are more determined by differences in the individual association's financial characteristics than by the external factors of the market in which they operate, such as state usury laws, market structure, and other economic characteristics of market areas.