SVB firesale sends ripples through stock markets

A US based bank, who had issued a $2.25bn stock sale to shore up its balance sheet triggered a broader sale in large bank stocks around fears the issues would be sector wide. Essentially, the news was caused by interest rate rises and how they affect bank profitability. For most large financial institutions the benefits of interest rate rises on asset growth outweigh the larger pay-outs on customer deposits. But in the case of SVB, where their cash was heavily invested in low yielding bonds, which could not finance the bank rates needed to keep tech-startups as customers, led to increasing liabilities coupled with stagnant asset growth – a growing shortfall they intended to fill with a stock sale. The rather directionless state of current markets means it is particularly sensitive to idiosyncratic signals such as this. However, the differences between large banks and specialist institutions, we believe, has not been accounted for with TAM seeing any further weakness in large banks as a buy opportunity.