There is an old belief that when bank stocks are doing well, the economy must be doing well also. With this in mind, we decided to take a look how the banking sectors have performed in seven different countries: USA, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Japan, China, Brazil. Since 3/31/2008 ( which is as far back as we have industry group data from MSCI), only China and Brazil have managed to make back all the gains that were lost in the financial crisis. German banks were knocked to the mat and have remained there as they have lost nearly 90% of its value since 2008. Over the past two years, however, the banks in Europe have been far better performers. French and German banks are 50-65% higher over the past two years. Interestingly, UK bank's have been laggards during this time