Bank Stocks May Crash and Burn After Hot October Run

It's no surprise that while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500
rolled back on Monday, the financial sector led the declines with JPMorgan
Chase (NYSE: JPM ) down over 5%, Bank of America (NYSE: BAC ) off over 7%,
Citigroup (NYSE: C ) off almost 8% and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS ) off almost 9%
to start the week. After a red-hot run in October, financial stocks were looking
overbought to just about everyone. But the question going forward is whether
this is just a pause for the sector amid a resurgence, or a sign that the gains
are fleeting. Unfortunately, it looks like the latter. Banks have lagged the
market in 2011 and look to be taking a beating yet again. Underperformance for
Banks in 2011 A look at the stock market across the past six months shows a
clear divergence between the broader market and the financial sector as
represented by this chart of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF