Bank ETF Lagging as Bears Unfazed by Higher Dividends, Buybacks
This article is for subscribers only.
Bank stocks are trailing the broader market even after Federal Reserve stress tests showed some financial institutions had regained enough strength to boost dividends and increase share repurchases.
The Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund, an exchange-traded fund that tracks more than 80 companies, outpaced the SPDR Standard & Poor’s 500 ETF Trust by 0.9 percentage point on March 12, the day after the Fed released results of its annual review of capital plans -- see chart. Since then, this ETF -- which includes Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. -- has lagged behind the benchmark fund by 0.8 percentage point, nearly erasing that one-day gain.