Aping the lower leg of the so-called K-shaped market recovery from the pandemic, European bank stocks nosedived to all-time lows on Friday - breaching both the March low and the early troughs of the late 1980s. While bank stocks have faced a plethora of negatives since the near-existential global banking crash 12 years ago, the economic and debt fallout from the pandemic is baking in many more years of zero or even negative interest rates across the continent, Britain and the Nordics and challenging any sustained recovery in business margins. The banking index hit a record low despite a wave of speculation about mergers and consolidation of Europe's banks.
Chart by Ritvik Carvalho and commentary by Mike Dolan.
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