Investors may finally be heaving a sigh of relief as sentiment in the banking sector improved.
First Citizens' purchase of SVB's assets was a bargain in monetary terms. More crucially, it signaled to markets that, despite SVB's financial difficulties, there was still value in SVB's reputation and relationship with its clients. There's hope, then, of reviving a dead bank — something that can happen only in an environment conducive to such miraculous feats.
Another troubled bank, First Republic, rallied after it was reported that U.S. authorities were considering giving the bank more time to shore up its liquidity. It might not need much more time, not only thanks to the $30 billion deposit promised to it by a coalition of banks, but also because the outflow of deposits from smaller banks to larger institutions has slowed in recent days, as sources told CNBC's Hugh Son.
And beleaguered KeyCorp, which tanked about 60% since the start of the banking turmoil, has a chance of surging 68.6%, according to Citi, which upgraded KeyCorp to buy from neutral.
The optimism was reflected in the SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE), which rose about 0.87%. Major indexes — with the exception of the Nasdaq Composite (more on that later) — closed the day in the green too. The Dow increased 0.6% and the S&P inched up 0.2%. The Nasdaq Composite, however, fell 0.5%.
Technology shares, which posted sterling gains as banks struggled the past two weeks, are now facing difficulties of their own. Alphabet slid 2.83%, Apple lost 2.8% and Meta slipped 1.5%. Charles Schwab's Liz Ann Sonders noted the valuation of the S&P 500′s information technology sector, relative to the performance of the companies, has risen more than 30%. That's not a sign we're back in the pandemic days of sky-high tech valuation, but it's something to keep an eye on as the banking crisis (hopefully) gets contained.
