Bank stocks have been hammered by a grab bag of worries: rising interest rates, Brexit chaos, a looming — if now seemingly avoided — government shutdown, volatile trade negotiations, worries about company-specific legal risks, and rising fears that the US economy could soon tip into a recession.
So far this year, the S&P 500 is down just under 6.2% — but many bank stocks are well into a bear market. JPMorgan is off almost 9%,Bank of America is down 18%, Morgan Stanley is down 25%, Wells Fargo has fallen 25%, Citigroup is off 29%, and Goldman Sachs has dropped a whopping 34%. The SPDR S&P Bank exchange-traded fund has slumped 22%.