KBundy,
I think you're the only one that has a solid understanding of the stock market here on these forums. Props for posting the chart and for attempting to inject reason into this looney bin.
On a side note, P/E of financial stocks is so incredibly low now that they're the best buy of the 21st century, second only to March 2009 (I tripled my money in one day on Citigroup!). This, combined with great earnings, an improving job market, falling oil prices, and the simple fact that banks are far, FAR more capitalized than they were in the fall of 2008, should lead to a gentle bull market.
If you had your buy button ready last week, you should be sitting on 15-20% solid gains on financials right now. Bitcoin is still in the sub $10 crapper. I'm waiting for that supposed bitcoin price rally...
The S&P is still overvalued by historical standards.
http://www.multpl.com/I know you're specifically talking about financials but for a bit broader spectrum, there's the chart. Had you been long financials yesterday and today you would have gave most of that gain back. Had you been short a few weeks ago you could've easily surpassed those gains. Hindsight is nice like that.
I'll give you that the banks are better capitalized now than in 2008. I'm assuming we're talking about US banks. But the US is still on the cusp of a recession and soverign default is a very real concern for MULTIPLE European countries. That's enough to bring everything down, financials (as well as small cap, biotech, etc.) will be hit the hardest.
I said it before on this board, the only bank I'm really looking at right now is WFC. And I think it will go cheaper so I'll wait. Then again I could be wrong, afterall, only one person on this board is apparently qualified to understand the stock market.