loading
loading
A selloff in banking stocks is rarely comforting. But after three years of strong gains, the latest pullback in European lenders looks more like a reset than a crash. The Euro Stoxx banks index has dropped by about 8% over two weeks, sliding to the lowest level since June and entering a technical correction on Thursday. Societe Generale SA, Credit Agricole SA and Deutsche Bank AG have all tumbled more than 15% from their recent highs. Soaring bond yields have been at the heart of the sudden drawdown, adding to risks for borrowers and eroding the value of sovereign assets held by banks. Much of the drama centers on France, where political upheaval and fears over its finances have pushed the premium on the nation’s debt over Germany’s to the widest in more than a decade. “Bond yields appear to have crossed a pain threshold that has prompted investors to reassess fundamentals,” said Roberto Scholtes, head of strategy at Singular Bank. “If interest rates rise as much as currently embedded in yield curves, non-performing loans could increase significantly, while loan growth and corporate banking activity would slow.” On the other hand, the retreat in banking stocks follows a breakneck rally that saw their shares triple since 2022. Bulls can point to the bigger picture: bank balance sheets are more robust than in the European sovereign bond crisis more than a decade ago. The spike in yields is unlikely to bleed through to fundamentals unless they go higher and stay elevated. Rather than a turning point, it looks more like some of the heat has gone out of a widely popular trade. “There is also a positioning factor, as banks have been a consensus long and some names had become quite crowded,” Scholtes noted. “We think these concerns are overdone, but stocks are likely to remain under pressure until yield curves and risk premia move sustainably lower.” The advance in bank stocks has looked almost unstoppable in recent years, with only the “Liberation Day” tariffs of April last year and the onset of the Iran war breaking their stride. The sector led gains in the region’s benchmark Stoxx 600 gauge for two years in a row as the economy remained resilient and earnings soared. But a few weeks back, as France’s uncertainty came into focus, derivatives strategists started pitching options on the banking sector as a hedge. They cited the crowded positioning in the sector and expectations for it to be sensitive to risks brewing in Paris. A net 25% of European market participants in a survey by Bank of America Corp. of fund managers last month were overweight banks, making it among the most popular sectors in the region. BofA derivatives strategists suggested using the sector as a proxy to hedge against French turmoil in a separate note, explaining that the Euro Stoxx banks index was more sensitive to big moves in the spread between yields on French and German bonds than the blue-chip CAC 40 or broader European market gauges. As French political and fiscal worries deepened, the nation’s bonds took some of the heaviest punishment in a global selloff of sovereign debt. Rising yields tend to be good for banks because they can earn more from their loans. But the speed of the change has caused some investors to worry about ripple effects across bank balance sheets. European banking supervisors say they are making extra checks on risks tied to these holdings. Their assessment is that the benefits to net interest income seem to be “largely offsetting” the impact of declining bond prices for now. Sovereign bonds accounted for about 13% of bank assets at the end of last year, according to the European Banking Authority. The next move for the sector hinges on the outlook for yields. JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists suggested the “sentiment-driven drawdown” on French lenders marked a good entry point in an Oct. 7 note, with their base case predicated on yields not moving significantly higher. At Morgan Stanley, strategists led by Marina Zavolock wrote that it would take “a more prolonged period of bond market volatility and OAT-Bund spread widening to derail the current strong fundamentals.” An imminent shift in market focus to earnings could help bring some relief for the sector, with European banks starting to report third-quarter results in a couple weeks. Barclays Plc strategists led by Anshul Gupta said they “expect attention to swing back to fundamentals, which should reassert the sector’s soundness.” Over at Creand Asset Management, Luis Buceta said the reporting season should reflect that the European economy’s fundamentals remain intact. “We still anticipate growth in lending volumes, driven by the current stage of the economic cycle and expectations for increased global capital investment, all within an interest-rate environment that currently remains quite favorable for the financial sector,” he wrote. With assistance from Christian Dass, Michael Msika and Matt Clinch. ©2026 Bloomberg L.P. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text. Catch all the Business News , Market News , Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates. Oops! Looks like you have exceeded the limit to bookmark the image. Remove some to bookmark this image.
document fetched 2026-10-11 02:45 · canonical https://livemint.com/market/banking-stock-swoon-in-europe-is-a-sign-of-caution-not-panic-11791613648093.html