Have UK stocks recovered from their early-year bear territory?

Headlines in January talked of the stockmarket suffering the worst start since the Great Depression and in mid-February a number of indices were down over 20% from their highs - into bear market territory.

Roll forward a couple of months and we have had a full recovery in share prices even if the reasons for the volatility and investor nervousness have not fully gone away. Relative performance across sectors has been extreme. Industrial metals and mining, the best performing sector, is up 98.4% compared to banks, the worst performing sector, which is down 13.5%. Meanwhile, mining the second best performing sector, is up 39.5% and life insurance, the second worst performing sector, is down 11.8%.   At the stock level the difference is bigger again. Anglo American, best performing stoc...