See how the small Chinese banks surprisingly outperformed the Big 4

Thanks to a more generous Basel III timeline released in December.

According to Bernstein Research, despite the stronger performance of the large banks over the past 12 months, the smaller banks have enjoyed strong momentum over the past 3-months.

"Their shares have risen an average 34% over the past 3 months, nearly 1500bp more than the large banks which have seen their share prices rise by just under 20%. Most of the outperformance exhibited by the smaller banks over the past 3 months occurred in the final month of the year and was driven by the more generous Basel III timeline released by regulators in early December."