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Bank stocks fall as SVB Financial failure intensifies Street's funding worries

The news of SVB Financial Group's capital raise plan and the subsequent failure of Silicon Valley Bank intensified the Street's concerns about funding, sending many bank stocks tumbling.

Companies including First Republic Bank, PacWest Bancorp and Western Alliance Bancorp. continued to see price declines for the second straight trading session, and several banks saw halts in trading as a result of the market's volatility on March 10. First Republic Bank's stock ended March 10 down 14.8% from the previous day at $81.76 per share, while PacWest closed down 37.9% at $12.35 per share and Western Alliance closed down 20.9% at $49.34 per share.

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"Investors digested several mid-Q updates, contemplated front-and-center issues such as deposit mix/flow/pricing, the related impact of 'higher-for-longer,' as well as renewed securities portfolio concerns and related factors," Piper Sandler analyst Scott Siefers wrote in a note.

Banks such as First Republic Bank, PacWest and Western Alliance face questions about liquidity pressure thanks to their venture capital exposure, but none have the same degree of concentration in the space as SVB Financial, analysts said in interviews with S&P Global Market Intelligence. In general, the analysts see the stock declines of other banks as a market overreaction to SVB Financial's issues and a response to fears of further potential bank runs.

The sell-off is "likely overdone" and a result of investors extrapolating the problems of individual banks to the larger bank sector, BofA Securities analyst Ebrahim Poonawala wrote in a March 10 report.

"The pullback also highlights a realization among investors that higher for longer rates are negative for the sector," Poonawala wrote. "We continue to expect stocks to [struggle] in the absence of a clearing event."

The likelihood of held-to-maturity sales threatening capital at banks is still very low unless bank customer fears create a run, Wells Fargo analyst Jared Shaw wrote in a March 9 report.

Banks have significant funding sources such as Federal Home Loan Bank borrowings and brokered deposits, and additional pressure on core deposits is not likely to catalyze a capital event, Shaw wrote.

Furthermore, banks have been good about maintaining capital levels since the great financial crisis and are far more reluctant to take on credit risk to avoid potential capital level problems, Shaw wrote. Higher rates and headwinds to their concentrated customer bases have uniquely impacted business models at SVB Financial Group and Silvergate Capital Corp., and these business models are hurting more than the average bank, he added.