Posted on 05/03/2023 5:39:36 AM PDT by Red Badger
Things weren’t supposed to move this quickly. Just hours after First Republic was dissected, two more major banks are in very serious trouble.
Are the dominoes going to start to fall more quickly than we were anticipating? After his bank gobbled up First Republic, Jamie Dimon told the world that “this part of the crisis is over”, and many in the corporate media believed him.
On Tuesday, “fears around contagion in the regional banking sector” pushed stock prices significantly lower…
Stocks tumbled on Tuesday as traders’ fears around contagion in the regional banking sector returned ahead of the Federal Reserve’s rate decision.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 367.17 points, or 1.08%, to end at 33,684.53. The S&P 500 slid 1.16% and closed at 4,119.58. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.08%, ending the session at 12,080.51. The three major averages fell for a second consecutive session.
Many regional banks got hit really hard, and that includes two institutions that analysts have already been watching very closely…
Regional bank stocks fell sharply Tuesday as the fallout from the third major bank failure this year continued to put pressure on the sector.
Shares of PacWest fell nearly 28% on Tuesday and was on track for its fourth-straight negative session. The stock was halted for volatility multiple times.
The California-based bank was not the only regional lender under pressure. Shares of Western Alliance dropped 15%.
If they have to halt trading for a particular stock several times in a single day, that is a really bad sign.
Like First Republic, PacWest and Western Alliance both experienced tremendous deposit outflows as a result of the bank runs that happened during the first quarter…
PacWest and Western Alliance were also among the financial institutions, along with First Republic, that came under intense scrutiny following the March 10 and March 12 failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
Both lenders, like First Republic, lost a sizable amount of deposits during the first quarter as customers sought the perceived safety of larger banks or higher yields being offered by money market funds. PacWest, a lender based in Beverly Hills, Calif., lost 17% of its deposits and Phoenix-based Western Alliance lost 11%, while First Republic lost 41%.
Both institutions are now highly vulnerable, and as Dick Bove has aptly noted, those that have made massive amounts of money from recent bank failures are searching for their next victim…
“People made a huge amount of money,” he said. “Those people who have driven SVB out of business, who benefitted from the Signature failure, who benefitted from the First Republic slow die, they made a lot of money.
“They are looking around to find another target.”
Of course PacWest and Western Alliance are not the only potential targets.
In fact, one news source is claiming that “half of America’s bank are potentially insolvent” at this point.
We really are in the early stages of the next major financial crisis.
And could it be possible that even some of our largest financial institutions are starting to show signs of trouble?
Earlier today, I was quite alarmed to learn that Morgan Stanley is planning to eliminate approximately 3,000 jobs…
Morgan Stanley is preparing a fresh round of job cuts amid a renewed focus on expenses as recession fears delay a rebound in dealmaking.
Senior managers are discussing plans to eliminate about 3,000 jobs from the global workforce by the end of this quarter, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That would amount to roughly 5% of staff excluding financial advisers and personnel supporting them within the wealth management division.
The health of the banking industry is of great concern for all of us, because the banks are the core of our economic system.
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Janna Rodriguez has big goals for her home-based child-care center. She wants to grow Innovative Daycare to serve more low-income families in Freeport, N.Y., but first, she needs a bank to loan her between $2 million and $4 million to help her move into a larger space and expand her hours.
So far, she keeps hearing “no.” Midsize banks near her in Long Island don’t want to take bets on the child-care industry, which has been hit hard by the pandemic, Rodriguez said. She’s felt lenders pull back even more since the March shock to the banking system. If she can’t expand, she’ll have to consider shutting the business down because otherwise, she just can’t see getting by.
And this isn’t just happening in the United States.
According to Zero Hedge, global lending standards haven’t been this tight since the collapse of Lehman Brothers…
A composite measure of DM banks’ lending standards shows they are the tightest since 2009. Tighter credit conditions will be an impediment to central banks’ preference to keep rates “higher for longer.”
The ECB’s bank lending survey was released this morning, with banks further tightening their credit standards.
This has pushed an aggregate measure of bank-loan credit standards to levels not seen since the Lehman crisis.
When banks get into trouble, they don’t have an appetite for taking risks.
Sadly, it is likely that banks will be very hesitant to make loans for the foreseeable future. So this will greatly depress economic activity.
In such an environment, it would be absolutely insane to raise interest rates, but that is what officials at the Fed have decided to do anyway. What this means is that more dominoes will fall, and the crisis that we have entered will get a whole lot worse.
Let’s keep a close eye on PacWest and Western Alliance. But they won’t be the only institutions that struggle for survival in the days ahead.
There is blood in the water, and the sharks are circling.
One world Bamking system?
Western Alliance uses brokered deposits, fwiw.
That is their goal, and it is accelerating.
The ‘Globalistas’ want ONE BANK for the entire world, so that THEY ALONE CONTROL ALL CAPITAL ON THE PLANET..................
The next bank that fails will be the one that has the most quality assets to be divided up among the Wall Street Banks.
IMO, right now a bank every couple of weeks gets in trouble according to “sources” and the run begins, the stock goes to near zero, the quality assets are gobbled up by a Wall Street Bank and the crap gets absorbed by the taxpayers.
PacWest looks like the next one to me, their stock has lost over 50% in the last week and over 80% in the last year. In the next 7-10 days look for a fire sale of the assets, they will be gone, employees will be gone, the stockholders will be busted and the taxpayers will take it in the shorts.
It reminds me of the hyenas on the Serengeti, circling the wildebeest herd, looking for the weak one...................
It is like that sort except in reverse IMO, the hyenas on Wall Street are looking for quality assets by paying pennies on the dollar and all the crap gets absorbed by the taxpayers.
This will continue until most if not all of the quality assets are gone and the rest will be owned by the taxpayers.
“hyenas on the Serengeti, circling the wildebeest herd, looking for the weak one”
It is easy pickings out there—I agree with the quote in the article that probably half of all banks are insolvent when their assets are marked down to market.
I thought that all banks are, by definition, ‘insolvent’.
At least that’s the idea I get every Christmas watching ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’................
Why have the so-called “regulators” of our banking industry allowed the “short-selling” of bank shares to become such a low-risk “opportunity” for professional “gamblers”?
Rep. Lois Frankel from Florida, sold First Republic Stock and purchased Chase Stock days before the forced sale.
Coincidence ?? I think not.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/02/politics/democratic-congresswoman-first-republic-stock/index.html
the biggest issue is that short term US treasury money market funds are yielding returns multiple times higher than ordinary bank deposits ...
Its time to end 50-state interstate banking. Banks can operate
within their own region (NE,SE,SW..etc) but can’t operate out of their region.
Deposits in excess of $250k are not insured and should not be the taxpayer’s responsibility. Let Yellen use her personal fortune to make them whole.
That’s not exactly what I’m talking about, in the case of SVB the FDIC and FED guaranteed all deposits, even those above $250,000, the precedent has been set, evidently the $250,000 limit doesn’t apply anymore, which is odd since Congress never approved anything like that.
However, what I was talking about is assets the Bank has invested in like T-Bill, Mortgages, etc...the ones that still have good value will go to the Wall Street Banks for pennies on the dollar, the others with little to no real value will go to the taxpayers, which is basically what happened with First Republic.
This is the way.
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