Financials Give Up Most of Bull Market Gains

For those that aren't aware of the dire straits that the credit crisis has put the Financial sector in, take a look at the chart below.  At current levels, the S&P 500 Financial sector is down 40.7% from its peak in February of last year.  The sector is now just 20.8% above its price at the start of the bull market on October 9th, 2002 and 1.58% below its price at the start of this decade. 

What was recently one of the best performing sectors of the bull market has now almost become the worst.  As shown in the table above, only the Health Care sector has gone up less than Financials since the start of the bull market.  On the flip side, the Energy sector has gone up nearly 15 times as much as Financials.  Thank you oil.

click to enlarge

Comments

[squashnut]

Thank you greedy arrogant shortsighted investment bankers.

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[proseadvocate]

This article should have a moral. Since it may be too obvious for some bull-market geniuses to see, I'll supply it. Since the financial gurus of our world can't manage their own shareholders' loot, why in the world should any investory look to them for advice to run theirs?

[CloroxCowboy]

What is the point of this article? You mean to tell me that financials are down? Oh, now I see it...without those red arrows I would be lost.

In the future, can you guys please supply a little analysis of the FUTURE price potential in the market? Your articles are jam packed with charts and tables, but these are things that people already know. I mean, you do this for a living correct?

Don't get me wrong, I don't expect you to tell me exactly what to buy and when, but what am I really supposed to get out of a chart showing me that financials are down? I'd love to start up an advisory service myself, and I've got this wild hunch that Einstein's theory of relativity might have some merit. Are there any physicists on this site who would be willing to pay me for that info?

[Raj Bapna]

Problems are far from over. There is still way to go on the downside.

[icandoitdon]

i'll supply the analysis.....

"In the same way, the last will be first, and the first will be last, because many are called, but few are chosen."

don't take my word for it....it's straight from the big guy.

[MurphMan]

I'm with CloroxCowboy on this one...all you do is present statistics with no conclusion or analysis. In fact, having read a number of your articles over the past few days, the same pattern occurs in almost all of them.

Bottom line: If you don't bring anything to the table, I ( and probably many others ) will simply put you on the "ignore " list.