Big US Bank Stocks Head for Worst Weekly Losing Streak Since 2008 Crisis

The 24-member KBW Bank Index is down around 1.1% this week and is on pace for a sixth consecutive weekly decline, which would mark its longest weekly losing streak since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. The index has fallen about 13% since its last record in August, following an almost 17% drawdown earlier this year, and has underperformed the S&P 500 in 18 of 21 trading days since the Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Sept. 16 — a run Barclays analyst Jason Goldberg called unprecedented across rolling 21-session periods since the gauge's May 1992 inception. Citigroup Inc., State Street Corp., Bank of America Corp., and Morgan Stanley are among the worst performers on the gauge, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. is up around 1.7% for the week. Beyond mixed third-quarter earnings and a hot inflation print fueling concerns over higher-for-longer interest rates, Bloomberg Intelligence notes that rising funding costs for AI companies are raising questions about capital-markets revenue tied to the AI infrastructure buildout, while agentic AI poses a potential longer-term threat to stable, low-cost deposits. "Big-bank stocks are facing a confluence of concerns, with a higher-for-longer rate backdrop raising the risk of slower economic growth and higher loan losses." — Herman Chan, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst.