The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday edition that lagging the market during the recent rebound, bank stocks are now catching up with big gains of their own. The Globe's David Berman writes that in the United States, the S&P 500 began the week down just 3 per cent for 2020. U.S. commercial banks, though, appear to reflect the grim reality: Though off their lows, the stocks are down about 30 per cent for the year. The Canadian picture is not quite as stark, although it reveals a similar disparity between banks and the broader market. The S&P/TSX Composite Index is down 8.7 per cent so far this year, while the Big Six banks are down about 15 per cent, on average. However, things are starting to shift as bank stocks come to life. RBC has rallied 14.5 per cent since May 26, when the big banks began to report their second-quarter financial results. That has easily beaten the 3-per-cent gain by the TSX over the same period. The attractive aspect here is that most bank stocks have a lot of room to rise before they fully recover. BMO, for example, would have to rise another 42 per cent to hit a new 52-week high. Also, valuations are low: The Big Six banks trade at just 9.3 times estimated 2021 earnings.