Investors Fear Bank Contagion, Despite a Sweeping Rescue Plan

Shares in regional lenders were under pressure, even after regulators unveiled a vast backstop for U.S. banks after Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse

Bailout nation

Andrew here. Federal regulators on Sunday unveiled the most sweeping backstop for the U.S. banking system since the 2008 crisis, to limit carnage from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. The decision has shaken up global markets, with investors selling bank stocks and betting that the Fed would hold off on further interest rate rises.

Monday’s newsletter is a special edition deep dive into what just happened. Let’s start with some takeaways from the dizzying turn of events: Too Big to Fail is as alive as ever, but now no bank is too small to fail as well.

Banking is now officially a government-backed business, if it wasn’t before. Let’s admit it: Once the government guarantees all deposits, the “business” of banking isn’t much of a business — and maybe shouldn’t be. This is likely to become the biggest debate of the coming weeks and months.

The venture capital community, a group that includes a vocal group of libertarians, was just bailed out. Yes, these investors do good by funding start-ups, but they have also long lobbied for fewer regulations and also benefited from the special treatment of carried interest. This all looks particularly egregious after some of them spent the weekend begging for government help.

But the reality is that if S.V.B. was just a small regional bank that did not have ties to loud, politically connected venture capitalists and the tech community, it might have been allowed to die — and its customers, individuals and small businesses, would have suffered. Instead, because it is Silicon Valley, it commanded attention.

We have become a country of bailouts. We did it after the Sept. 11 attacks, in the wake of the financial crisis in 2008, during the pandemic — and now we are at it again. For those that say we should have lower taxes and shouldn’t fund the government, how are these bailouts supposed to be financed? (It’s also fair to say regulators should have done a better job, but the truth is that they have been pushed to do less, not more.)

Now that regulators will likely force small banks to raise their capital requirements to a level similar to bigger banks, costs for businesses and consumers will go up in the short term. That, of course, comes on top of higher interest rates.

Regulators should have kept a closer eye on small banks. They spent too much of the past decade or so focused on the big banks, because they apparently didn’t think that small lenders posed a systemic risk. But guess what? We have now decided that regional banks are just as risky.

Some of these institutions, including S.V.B., pushed back on more regulation, arguing that this wouldn’t allow them to compete with their bigger rivals. Silicon Valley Bank wrapped itself in the flag, arguing that was supporting small start-up businesses.

Shadow banking will expand. As more and more of the banking system faces tighter regulation, the business of making loans will increasingly move down the food chain to private firms. This has been happening for years already, but the trend is now likely to accelerate.

Bank runs are even more dangerous in the age of social media. Confidence can evaporate faster than ever when misinformation can spread in a matter of minutes, and a single tweet can send customers fleeing.

The big winner: Jamie Dimon and the big banks. JPMorgan Chase’s bankers spent the week opening up new accounts as everyone fled smaller lenders in favor of its “fortress balance sheet.” Investors have complained over the years about Dimon’s focus on having enough capital and sufficient liquidity at the expense of earnings, but his approach now looks like the right one.

Big banks’ behavior this time has been shaped by the fallout from 2008. Why isn’t Dimon buying S.V.B.? He has complained about the headaches of buying Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual at the government’s behest in 2008, having spent years fighting litigation and paying fines for those firms’ bad behavior. Bank executives who were around back then remember that.

HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING

The U.S., Britain and Australia will unveil a new defense pact to counter China. President Biden will announce the landmark nuclear-submarine agreement with the leaders of the other two countries at a meeting in San Diego. The talks come as China’s leader, Xi Jinping, vowed to bolster his country’s military and warned against “external interference” in Taiwan. Xi reportedly plans to meet as soon as next week with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and to speak with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

President Biden will greenlight environmental protections, as well as drilling, in the Arctic. A new measure defending more than 16 million acres of land and water in Alaska from oil and gas leases comes as he also plans to approve a contentious oil development project.

“Everything Everywhere All At Once” wins big at the Oscars. The sci-fi action comedy won best picture and six other awards, including best actress for Michelle Yeoh, making her the first Asian woman to receive the prize. The ceremony passed without incident after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock last year.

The race to stop banking contagion continues

Federal regulators hope that the sweeping backstop they introduced on Sunday to insulate the U.S. financial system from Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse will hold, even as they shut another regional lender, Signature Bank.

But yet another institution, First Republic, appears under pressure on Monday, despite securing funding. And the blame game is well underway.

First Republic reflects investor fears about banks’ health. The independent lender said on Sunday that it had secured access to about $70 billion in additional liquidity from the Fed and JPMorgan Chase. But its shares were down nearly 60 percent in premarket trading, suggesting markets are worried that it remains in trouble.

Investors more broadly feared further chaos was coming, despite the Fed’s efforts. European stocks, particularly big banks, were down this morning. Not even the prospect of a pause in central banks’ raising rates appeared to offer much comfort.

Regulators are still trying to sort out the wreckage of Silicon Valley Bank. HSBC said on Monday that it would buy the failed lender’s British operations for a symbolic 1 pound ($1.21), helping to shore up U.K. start-ups.

Meanwhile, bidders including JPMorgan and PNC Financial are reportedly still pursuing a deal for Silicon Valley Bank’s holding company, which includes asset management and a securities division and excludes the commercial bank now under F.D.I.C. control.

Start-ups are hoping they can finally exhale. Until the Fed announced that deposits at Silicon Valley Bank would be available from Monday, entrepreneurs raced to find cash to make payroll and pay expenses. Some found help from their venture capital bankers, private lenders and even from tech moguls like Sam Altman, of the ChatGPT creator OpenAI.

The billionaire investor Dan Loeb took a shot at some of his fellow venture capitalists, however: Start-ups could see who came to help, versus those who “hemmed and hawed or claimed their GPs didn’t have capital like that guy from a multi- billion quant shop,” he tweeted.

And recriminations are flying widely. Regulators face questions about how they missed red flags at Silicon Valley Bank, while venture capitalists were criticized as helping to spark a run at the lender. S.V.B. executives also took flak for mismanagement, including by failing to hedge against rises in interest rates, and for paying out employee bonuses on Friday.

But much of the criticism was aimed at the banking industry itself, which pushed back hard against tougher regulations after 2008. Lever News reported that allies of Silicon Valley Bank had opposed a higher deposit insurance surcharge from the F.D.I.C. to protect customer money. (Of note: One of Signature’s directors is Barney Frank, the former U.S. lawmaker who helped spearhead the expansive Dodd-Frank banking regulations. Incidentally, he blames this mess on crypto.)

Progressives used the moment to call for tighter regulations, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, in a Times Opinion guest essay:

These bank failures were entirely avoidable if Congress and the Fed had done their jobs and kept strong banking regulations in place since 2018. S.V.B. and Signature are gone, and now Washington must act quickly to prevent the next crisis.

What we know (and don’t know) about the bailout

The government’s deal to backstop depositors’ money held at all banks — and, in particular, at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank — came as a huge relief to start-ups, the venture capital ecosystem and investors. But it hardly removes the contagion fears. Here are the main points of the rescue program, and the questions we still have.

The move could improve the prospects of a deal for S.V.B. A potential buyer wouldn’t have to absorb the bank’s huge losses, making the bank, which has a powerful customer base of tech elites and start-ups, more desirable. But will a savior demand some kind of protection against possible future litigation?

Silicon Valley shareholders will see their holdings wiped out. That’s a key difference from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the sweeping banking bailout that saved U.S. lenders during the 2008 financial crisis.

Other banks have a new liquidity cushion. The Fed’s new program will let eligible banks borrow against bond holdings that have lost value since the central bank jacked up interest rates. That’s a big deal for banks sitting on huge quantities of these bonds, like Charles Schwab and First Republic, that would have had to take losses too if a wave of customer deposit withdrawals forced them to sell off those holdings. (Banks wouldn’t book a loss if those bonds are held to maturity.)

Are taxpayers really off the hook? Federal regulators say that banks insured by the F.D.I.C. (that is, most U.S. lenders) will be required to pay a tax to fund the measure.

But there’s nothing stopping banks from passing on that cost to customers, including through, say, credit card fees. And the loan program itself is backed by $25 billion from the Exchange Stabilization Fund, a Treasury Deposit emergency rescue fund financed by taxpayers.

What about other regional banks? Markets’ volatility this morning shows that not all investors are convinced that these measures will safeguard American banks, particularly in an era of rising interest rates and industry consolidation.