The Wall Street Journal says that Wall Street is booming again:
Shares in America’s banks are booming again….Investor expectations of higher interest rates, lower taxes, lighter regulation and faster economic growth under the Trump administration have added $280 billion in combined market value to the nation’s six largest banks since Nov. 8.
….Bank stocks overall have outperformed broader stock markets since the election. The roughly 27% gain since Nov. 8 for the KBW Nasdaq Bank Index is around three times that of the S&P 500.
Yes…but. You can make almost any case you want for Wall Street depending on how you choose your starting and ending points. For example, here are five big bank stocks in the first month after the election:
Bank stocks kicked ass in the first month after the election. The S&P 500 is the thick dotted purple line, and big banks outperformed it by 15-30 percent. Now here are the same stocks in the two months since then:
Bank of America and JP Morgan have gone up an anemic 5 percent, about even with the market. The others haven’t even done that well. But if you decide just to focus on the past two weeks, here’s what bank stocks look like:
Once again, the big banks are all outperforming the market. So how is Wall Street doing? It all depends on how you look.
