Every once in a while you see a statistic that just defies logic. The one that really jumped out at me (that I vividly recall) was during the financial crisis when I read on a Bloomberg Chart of the Day that the US banking sector had fallen as much as the Nasdaq had during the tech bust. Although it made complete sense at the time, you just read a statistic like that and say “is this not overdone”? The day that was posted just happened (by chance) to be the bottom of the market in 2009.

Given the fact that the Euro crisis is never ending (thanks to a lack of political compromise) it’s unlikely that the timing on this one will be anything remotely similar, but this statistic just jumped out at me as a sign of incredible skew in a large market. It’s food for thought and as always, certainly not an investment recommendation, but a very nice 30,000 foot view of the collapse in European equities during the last few years. The European financial sector is now smaller than Australia’s! Now that has to make you go “hmmmm”. (via Bank of America):