The financial sector, which includes banks like JPMorgan and
insurance companies like AIG, had the fastest earnings growth in the Standard
& Poor’s 500 in 2012.[1]
As of mid-2013, the sector comprised 16.8% of the S&P 500, almost double
the percentage back in 2009. With the technology sector weighing in at 17.6
percent in 2013, the financial sector was poised to become the largest sector
in the S&P 500. The traditional critique of the financial sector having a
larger share of the economy is that the sector doesn’t “make” anything. As this
argument is well-known, I want to point to two others.
1. Alex
Barinka and Whitney Kisling, “Banks
Poised to Lead S&P 500 as JPMorgan Beats Microsoft,” Bloomberg, July
29, 2013.
