While U.S. stocks have been powered ahead in 2024 by artificial intelligence (AI), it’s a different story in Europe. Across the Atlantic, the successful investing strategy was to buy “tanks and banks.”These sectors – defense and banking – were on very few investors’ shopping lists prior to the Russia-Ukraine war and the rise in interest rates. Why European banks? The most compelling reason to look at European banks is that the sector – after dividend payout bans during the pandemic – is rushing to shovel as much money into the hands of investors as possible this year. The extent of the industr…