IT has been a pretty good few weeks for stocks. The S&P 500 index has bounced 11.8 per cent from its Oct 27 low, thanks in part to a significant pullback in 10-year US Treasury bond yields from a peak of 5 per cent.

The Straits Times Index (STI), however, is up only 1.9 per cent from its Oct 23 low – no thanks to the three Singapore banks, which account for nearly half the local benchmark index.

DBS has fallen 4.3 per cent since Oct 23, making it the worst-performing component of the STI during the nearly seven-week period. OCBC and UOB have slipped 0.5 per cent and 0.1 per cent, respectively.