On Thursday, Silicon Valley Bank's stock price plummeted by 60%, and the market value of the four major US banks shrank significantly by as much as $47 billion.
This morning, the latest news came in that Silicon Valley Bank officially went bankrupt and was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance.
The market is in a state of panic, with depositors frantically withdrawing their money, and the pain left by Lehman Brothers during the subprime crisis is once again brought to the surface.
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On Wednesday, Silicon Valley Bank announced that due to a massive investment loss, it had to issue additional shares to replenish its capital through a rights issue, but this news completely exposed the bank's predicament, leading to a significant drop in stock prices and a run on the bank by customers.
After the failure of Silicon Valley Bank's previous fundraising plans, it also considered recouping funds by selling some assets, but due to the continuous loss of deposits during this period, the sale plan could not be implemented.
On Thursday, Silicon Valley Bank's stock price fell by 60%, also leading to a general decline of more than 5% in the US stock market's banking sector.
JPMorgan Chase alone lost nearly $20 billion in market value due to a 6% drop in stock price; in addition, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, which both fell more than 6%, lost a combined market value of $23 billion; and Citibank's drop also reached 4.1%, with a market value reduction of $3 billion.
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Adding the decline on Friday, the losses of these four banks have already exceeded $50 billion.
Before the opening on Friday, Silicon Valley Bank's stock price fell another 69%, forcing it to announce a trading halt.Subsequently, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation announced the closure of Silicon Valley Bank and appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to take over. Currently, all insured deposits of the bank are being transferred to the Deposit Insurance National Bank.
Undoubtedly, this is the biggest bombshell in the U.S. banking industry since 2008, and the U.S. finance is once again facing a Lehman moment.
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The bankruptcy of this bank has already caused a continuous decline in the U.S. stock market. In the early morning, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by nearly 350 points again, and the total drop in two days has exceeded 800 points.
The S&P 500 index has broken through the 3900 point mark, with all 11 sectors covered experiencing a decline. The real estate sector saw a drop as high as 3.25%. However, the banking sector, which had a significant decline the day before, only fell by 0.48% in the early morning, but the banking industry index has dropped by 11.5% over the entire week.
The Nasdaq index also saw a decline of 1.45%.
A group of tech giants all fell, with most of the declines ranging between 1% and 2%, including Apple, Netflix, Google, Amazon, and META.
In comparison, the performance of Chinese concept stocks was slightly better, with the China Golden Dragon Index only falling by 0.3%, but the cumulative drop for the entire week also reached 10.5%. Bilibili, which had a significant decline the day before, rose by 6%, and all new energy vehicle companies, including NIO, XPeng, and Li Auto, fell.
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What worries investors the most now is that many professional analysts are not concerned about this situation.When the Lehman incident first occurred, many professional analysts also claimed it was an isolated phenomenon, which ultimately led to the financial crisis that followed.
Now, numerous professionals are again stating that the situation is under control, but investors still harbor lingering fears about Lehman.
On Friday morning, some customers of Wells Fargo reported that some of their deposits were missing. In response, Wells Fargo acknowledged that this was a technical issue, but assured that the deposits are safe.
Under normal circumstances, people might accept this explanation, but due to the Silicon Valley Bank incident, many customers are worried that the entire financial industry's risk is in a very fragile state.
Considering the current rising bank lending rates, the operating costs for banks are also increasing. At the same time, the risk of a real estate bubble bursting is growing, which poses a serious threat to the banks' operations.
An increasing number of investors are concerned that the crisis of 2008 will be repeated.