Bank Stocks Falling Out of Favor in U.S., Europe, Japan

Bank stocks around the world are falling out of favor with investors, as this chart shows. The KBW Bank Index’s ratio to the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, featured in the top panel, set a four-year low last week and moved even lower today. Comparable ratios for European and Japanese banks are depicted in the middle and bottom panels, respectively. They both reached record lows this week. “Bank stocks have been acting weak and continue to be a concern for the market,” Jonathan Krinsky, MKM Partners LLC’s chief market technician, wrote yesterday in a report that cited similar ratios.