Banks look fairly valued, but pose a lot of recession riskAlong with energy, the financial sector is one of the few sectors currently at an attractive valuation. With a P/E of 13.3 and a price-to-book ratio of 1.4, banks are quite reasonably priced. The dividend yield of 1.8% is low compared to bonds or energy, however.
What worries me about banks is that I think they have a lot of bad debt on the books that will never get repaid, meaning that their assets are inflated and the price-to-book ratio isn't as good as it looks. This is especially true of the holders of student loans, but we've also seen risky mortgages skyrocket in the last few years. With private debt now far above its 2007 pre-recession levels, any significant downturn in the labor market could trigger a wave of defaults and a crash in both the banking and real estate sectors.
So however attractive this sector looks on paper, it poses a lot of recession risk. I'd say add this to your portfolio if it pulls back to the "buy" zone on the reverse RSI, but keep it underweight. Exit if we see a series of bad job reports.
