America is about to see a cascade of bank failures, and the future of hundreds of regional banks is on the line right now. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, Credit Suisse and First Republic marked the start of a reckoning in a sector that is being severely impacted by rising interest rates, souring loans, lower deposit rates, and falling profits in 2023. Many institutions have high exposure to risky assets, something that account holders will probably only find out after a major crisis erupts and they can no longer withdraw their funds. Regional banks are particularly endangered due to the fact that the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes have eroded the value of bank assets such as government bonds and mortgage-backed securities. Most bonds pay a fixed interest rate that becomes attractive when interest rates fall, driving up demand and the price of the bond. In contrast, if interest rates rise, investors will no longer prefer the lower fixed interest rate paid by a bond, thus driving down its price. No wonder why some institutions have lost more than 80% of their market capitalization this year.
For example, Pacific West Bank may be the fourth California bank to fall this year. According to Ed Moya, a senior market analyst at Oanda, the company’s terrible performance on financial markets is a major indicator of trouble. The bank recently revealed that outflows started to rise again, leading its shares to drop 22.7% in a single day, which further extended its recent declines. PacWest’s shares have now fallen more than 50% this month and nearly 80% for the year. Adding assault to injury, the bank said in a securities filing that its deposits declined 9.5% in the last quarter. “PacWest is starting to look like the weakest link and some traders are wondering if they will fail or have a sale,” Moya revealed.
“Our calculations suggest these banks are certainly at a potential risk of a run, absent other government intervention or recapitalization,” economists with the Social Science Research Network wrote in a new report. “The recent declines in bank asset values very significantly increased the fragility of the U.S. banking system to uninsured depositor runs,” they noted.
A run on these banks could pose a risk to even insured depositors − those with $250,000 or less in the bank − as the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund starts incurring losses. These institutions represent just a small share of the more than 200 banks that are vulnerable to the same type of risk that took down Silicon Valley Bank. The potential impact of all of these institutions being at risk at the same time could be significant for the banking sector and the broader economy. If a small number of these banks were to fail, it could lead to a domino effect, causing other banks to fail as well. This could create a nationwide credit crunch, making it even more difficult for businesses and consumers to access credit and slowing economic growth.
The truth is that a single bank run on one of these vulnerable institutions could cause a ripple effect, leading depositors to withdraw funds from other banks as well. That would spark panic on financial markets and the public could lose confidence in the banking system as a whole, a scenario similar to what happened when the Great Depression started to unfold in the 1930s. It seems that a financial crisis may erupt sooner than we all thought, and we are certainly no prepared to deal with its repercussions. And the companies listed in this video could be the next to break down all around us.