Neoliberalism · Banking · Silicon Valley Bank et al.

Neoliberalism

Banking

Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and Credit Suisse, 2023


Fig. 1. “The monument sign in front of the parking lot of the Silicon Valley Bank headquarters at 3003 West Tasman Drive, Santa Clara, California.” Photograph by Minh Nguyen, March 13, 2023, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The innovation economy is the best place to be. We’re very fortunate to be right in the middle of it.[1]

The wheels started to come off on Wednesday [March 8, 2023], when [Silicon Valley Bank] announced it had sold a bunch of securities at a loss and that it would sell $2.25 billion in new shares to shore up its balance sheet. That triggered a panic among key venture capital firms, who reportedly advised companies to withdraw their money from the bank.[2]

What caused the sudden loss of confidence in [Silicon Valley Bank] is the stuff of rumors. The made-for-Twitter rumor with the most staying power posits that the iconoclastic Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel decided the gig was up at SVB and that he, or one of his executives, urged his portfolio companies at his Founders Fund to take their money out of the bank. Did he also buy short-dated puts on the SVB stock, or short it, to help make the whole thing a self-fulfilling prophecy? Who knows? (His spokesman, Jeremiah Hall, at Torch Communications, did not respond to a request for comment. But his partner, Trae Stephens, all but confirmed to Bloomberg that Founders Fund initiated the stampede.) Further speculation has it that both Sequoia and a16z then followed Thiel’s lead and urged their portfolio companies to get their money the heck out of SVB. There have also been reports that as early as December, Fred Wilson, the dean of New York’s venture capital industry, at Union Square Ventures, began telling its portfolio companies to flee SVB.[3]

It’s hard to imagine a deeper embarrassment for Silicon Valley. Tough-talking tech dudes who spent years celebrating the genius of free markets totally lost their minds in a bank panic, failed to coordinate a private rescue of their own sector, and then went whining to the federal government for a bailout. What’s worse, many of these guys—including SVB Bank CEO Greg Becker—lobbied Congress to eliminate tougher capital and liquidity regulations for banks like [Silicon Valley Bank], and got what they wanted. Becker’s testimony to the Senate Banking Committee (see p. 114) feels destined for the corporate hubris canon. Hailing “SVB’s deep understanding of the markets it serves, our strong risk management practices, and the fundamental strength of the innovation economy,” Becker declared that, “SVB, like our mid-sized bank peers, does not present systemic risk.” . . .

The mechanics of SVB’s collapse are relatively straightforward. The bank bought up a ton of long-term Treasury bonds and mortgage securities when interest rates were low over the past few years. When the Fed raised interest rates, those bonds became less attractive on the open market—newer bonds came with higher payouts, making SVB’s older bonds harder to sell off in a pinch. So when SVB’s depositors began drawing down their balances this year to meet business expenses, the bank was forced to dump its bonds at fire-sale prices to obtain the cash it needed to meet customer withdrawals. As the bank ran low on cash, it announced plans to raise more, and a bunch of influential people in Silicon Valley panicked, withdrawing their money en masse in a classic bank run. Fail fast, indeed.[4]

[Nouriel Roubini, professor emeritus at the Stern School of Business of New York University — a.k.a. Dr Doom] zeroed in on the heart of the problem. [Silicon Valley Bank] had built up a big bond portfolio while interest rates were near zero, but the value of those bonds plunged when rates rose and newly issued debt became far more attractive to investors. The old bonds started to represent “unrealized losses.”

When troubles in the tech sector pushed SVB’s depositors to start making large withdrawals, the bank was forced to sell its bond portfolio in an unfavorable market. Those “unrealized losses” were realized, and SVB suffered a $1.8 billion loss, leading to the bank’s eventual collapse.

Any other shock could have a similar domino effect, Roubini warned. “Official data of the FDIC [U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] said there are $620 billion of unrealized losses on securities and the capital of banks in the U.S. is $2.2 trillion, so the average U.S. bank has about a third of its tier one capital at risk,” he told POLITICO, referring to a metric that indicates how easily a bank can absorb losses on its financials.[5]

Moral Hazard: “Socializing the risk” of bad loans (see Bad Debt) or gambles via taxpayer bailouts of bankers or bondholders who lose money on bad and even fraudulent loans. There is nothing socialist (although some call it socialism for the rich”) about this particular form of Big Government. A better term for this tnora hazard is “oligarchizing the risk.” (See State Socialism.) Reversing the idea that the role of banks and other financial institutions is to serve the economy, financialization sacrifices the economy to protect the One Percent from suffering losses on its assets and bad loans. The effect of such subsidy to banks Too To Fail/Jail is to shift assets from the public at large (the 99 Percent, euphemized as “taxpayers,” although the Federal Reserve plays the major role) to the financial sector (the non-taxpayers under oligarchies).

For instance, the U.S. Government reimbursed uninsured depositors in high-risk S&Ls in the 1980s, leading to insolvency of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) after a fire sale of assets. In the wake of the 2008 crash Ireland’s government likewise bailed out Anglo-Irish Bank depositors at public (taxpayer) expense, plunging the economy into depression. Moral hazard also increased as the bubble economy gained momentum leading up to 2008, under Robert Rubin’s gang, Citibank embarked on a series of risky ventures, secure in the knowledge that the Obama cabinet (following Citigroup’s recommendations) would bail it out. The alternative, bankers threatened, was to block depositors from access to their banks’ ATM machines.[6]

Michael Hudson’s foregoing entry[7] is a little too narrow. Classically, moral hazard arises when people taking undue or irresponsible risks may benefit when those risks pay off but are insulated from the costs when those risks materialize. As Hudson observes, however, moral hazard seems entirely acceptable for the rich, as we see yet again with the well-off depositors at Silicon Valley Bank who deposited money well in excess of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation limits, including, we must acknowledge, payroll money,[8] but entirely unacceptable for, for example, people getting an education.[9]

“There’s not a way to help the people [Joe Biden] wants without also helping the uninsured depositors who made a bad choice by putting too much money into a single bank,” said one adviser to the White House. “I have no doubt in my mind that he feels ambivalent about it. But he’s not willing to take a risk with this economy.” . . .

Throughout the weekend, Biden’s inner circle emphasized the potential impact on workers’ paychecks, which they believed would resonate both with the president and the public, said one of the people familiar with the deliberations. And they urged Biden to speak to the public before U.S. markets opened to ward off runs on other regional banks. . . .

[The proposal to bailout depositors] also raised questions about whether the [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] might be expected to make all depositors whole anytime a bank fails, something it is not designed to do, making the decision especially painful for [FDIC Chair Martin] Gruenberg and his fellow board members.

Though the Fed and the FDIC were each designed to stop financial panics, the moves by both agencies also risked ratifying the notion that the government would always be there to dull the consequences of the collapse of a larger bank. It was the “moral hazard” question that dogged rescue efforts in 2008 and 2009. . . .

Bob Kocher, a partner at venture capital firm Venrock and former Obama-era White House official, said some panicked companies are going as far as transferring all their money into board members’ individual bank accounts while they set up their own new accounts with major financial institutions.

“There’s no way now as a board member you can sign off on putting all your money into a regional bank,” he said, adding that he expects to see significant outflows at similarly sized institutions like First Republic Bank and PacWest Bancorp. “Everybody’s racing to put their money into JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs.”

Beyond making payroll, Kocher said, [Silicon Valley Bank’s] failure raised questions about how companies would pay for basic services like cloud storage and website maintenance, as well a constellation of smaller suppliers, if their deposits got tied up in a troubled bank.[10]

The extraordinary measures—which do not quite amount to bailout in the 2008 sense but bear more of a resemblance to a bailout than some venture capitalists would like to admit—come after the stunning collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. SVB officially shuttered Friday after a run on deposits, followed by similar failure of Signature Bank, which regulators closed Sunday amid concerns that it could threaten the financial system more broadly. The Biden administration cast the intervention as necessary to “maintain a resilient banking system.” But what this whole fiasco has made clear is that the banking system is actually pretty far from resilient, and has instead been left in a fragile state from deregulation.[11]

In many cases, [Silicon Valley Bank’s and Signature Bank’s] deposits weren’t covered by the deposit insurance that is familiar to many individual bank customers. [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation] insurance typically extends up to $250,000 for a deposit. But SVB and Signature both had most of their deposits in accounts that were larger than that, such as corporate accounts. So they were effectively uninsured.

This is the nature of these banks’ business models. Many of SVB’s clients were venture-funded tech companies. Signature focused on private companies, and more recently on cryptocurrency firms. Signature said in its annual report that as of the end of last year, nearly 90% of its total $88.6 billion deposits weren’t FDIC-insured. . . .

The regulators [including the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Treasury Department] said they were making an exception [by fully protecting deposits] for SVB and Signature. The SVB action was taken in consultation not only with many regulators but also with President Biden—indicating the unusual nature of their move. Signature was similarly protected under a “systemic risk exception” to backstop its uninsured deposits.

That is a power that was used during the 2008 financial crisis. Measures such as this can be controversial, with some arguing that it creates what is known as a “moral hazard”—that by letting banks or their customers know the government will backstop them in a crisis, they will think less about risks.

So regulators might have to walk a fine political line: indicating strength and decisiveness to stem further bank runs, but not looking like they are granting a free pass to banks. The regulators said any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to cover uninsured deposits would be recovered by a special assessment charged to banks. They also noted that shareholders and certain debtholders of the two banks wouldn’t be protected.[12]

“We are trying to help depositors of institutions. The banks, equity and bondholders are being wiped out,” the Treasury official said. “The firms are not being bailed out. The depositors are being protected.”

But other economists — including some Biden allies, and even those who defended the move as necessary — still say the measures amount to a bailout. Even though the fund [protecting deposits] is paid into by U.S. banks, it is ultimately backstopped by the Treasury Department, potentially putting taxpayers on the hook if it runs out. . . .

“It puts government money at risk. Will they end up having to pay anything from it? Probably not. But they’re definitely giving some great value to the depositors at that bank,” said Dean Baker, an economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank. “It is a special intervention. It was not in the rules. It is a bailout.”[13]

Still, some individuals and businesses clearly benefitted from the government’s emergency intervention: S.V.B. and Signature customers with deposits that exceeded the quarter-million-dollar limit for insurance. “When you have people who were going to take losses and now they are not, they are being bailed out by somebody,” Morgan Ricks, a law professor at Vanderbilt University who previously worked at the Treasury Department, told me on Sunday night. “They have been making a lot of noise to be made whole, and now they are made whole.”[14]

Two issues are being conflated here: First, there is the issue of bailing out the banks themselves, as happened under the Barack Obama administration in the 2008 Financial Crisis,[15] even as that administration left unemployed people, small businesspeople, and “underwater” homeowners to twist on the vine.[16] This is not what Joe Biden’s administration did.[17]

Second, there is the issue of bailing out the banks’ depositors, which is what the Biden administration is doing in response to the Silicon Valley Bank crisis.[18] It’s hard to see how large companies with large payrolls can write paychecks or pay day-to-day bills without a checking account with sufficient funds to cover those checks. But whether other depositors should have had deposits in excess of FDIC limits is what raises the issue of moral hazard.[19]

The real outrage is that any of this became necessary at all. If Congress hadn’t gone out of its way to deregulate banks like [Silicon Valley Bank], SVB very likely would not be in this situation. Back in 2018, 17 Senate Democrats joined a unanimous bloc of Senate Republicans to eliminate important capital and liquidity rules for 25 of the 38 largest financial institutions covered by American banking law. [Greg] Becker and other executives of large regional banks insisted that the rules written in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis were too stringent—they were designed for multitrillion-dollar behemoths, but firms with as little as $50 billion in assets were being subjected to them. Sensing a political fundraising opportunity, swing-state Democrats helped Republicans write a bill to aid guys like Becker, and then pitched it to the public as a lifeline for mom-and-pop operations. . . .

[T]here is more to economic management than rescuing deposits. Civil and criminal probes are warranted here. Becker has been paid more than $45 million since 2018, according to [Securities and Exchange Commission] filings, and he dumped $3.6 million in SVB stock on February 27 as his firm was collapsing—not a traditional marker of sound fiduciary stewardship. It is extremely unusual for so many companies to be keeping so much cash in a single institution—particularly when the [venture capital] bigwigs they worked with were also carrying very large accounts at the same firm. It is essential that the government not repeat the mistakes it made after 2008, when prosecutors simply decided not to pursue clear-cut cases against fraudulent activity. Anything illegal must be pursued—to do otherwise would damage American democracy.[20]

[E]ven if taxpayers aren’t directly on the hook for losses at [Silicon Valley Bank] and Signature, the actions taken raise larger questions about the financial sector and the favorable treatment it receives from the federal government, including implicit financial assurances that tend to become explicit guarantees during moments of crisis like this.[21]

Even if only half of uninsured depositors decide to withdraw, almost 190 banks are at a potential risk of impairment to even insured depositors, with potentially $300 billion of insured deposits at risk. If uninsured deposit withdrawals cause even small fire sales, substantially more banks are at risk. Overall, these calculations suggest that recent declines in bank asset values significantly increased the fragility of the US banking system to uninsured depositors runs . . . .[22]

Brian Chappatta, “SVB’s 44-Hour Collapse Was Rooted in Treasury Bets During Pandemic,” Bloomberg, March 10, 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-10/svb-spectacularly-fails-after-unthinkable-heresy-becomes-reality

Allison Morrow and Matt Egan, “Silicon Valley Bank collapses after failing to raise capital,” CNN, March 10, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/10/investing/svb-bank/index.html

Saleha Mohsin, Lydia Beyoud and Sridhar Natarajan, “FDIC Races to Return Some Uninsured SVB Deposits Monday,” Bloomberg, March 11, 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-11/fdic-races-to-start-returning-some-uninsured-svb-deposits-monday

Associated Press, “US government: Silicon Valley Bank clients will get funds,” March 12, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/silicon-valley-bank-bailout-yellen-deposits-failure-94f2185742981daf337c4691bbb9ec1e

William D. Cohan, “SVB’s Valley of Death,” Puck, March 12, 2023, https://puck.news/svbs-valley-of-death/

Ben Foldy, Rachel Louise Ensign, and Justin Baer, “How Silicon Valley Turned on Silicon Valley Bank,” Wall Street Journal, March 12, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-silicon-valley-turned-on-silicon-valley-bank-ee293ac9

Victoria Guida and Sam Sutton, “‘There’s going to be more’: How Washington is bracing for bank fallout,” Politico, March 12, 2023, https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/12/silicon-valley-bank-fallout-washington-00086662

Jeff Stein et al., “U.S. says ‘all’ deposits at failed bank will be available Monday,” Washington Post, March 12, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2023/03/12/silicon-valley-bank-deposits/

Nick Timiraos, “SVB, Signature Bank Depositors to Get All Their Money as Fed Moves to Stem Crisis,” Wall Street Journal, March 12, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-reserve-rolls-out-emergency-measures-to-prevent-banking-crisis-ba4d7f98

Zachary Warmbrodt, “Banks fought to fend off tougher regulation. Then the meltdown came,” Politico, March 12, 2023, https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/12/banks-regulations-feds-svb-meltdown-00086694

Adam Cancryn, Ben White, and Victoria Guida, “How Biden saved Silicon Valley startups: Inside the 72 hours that transformed U.S. banking,” Politico, March 13, 2023, https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/13/the-emergency-bank-rescue-that-almost-didnt-happen-72-hours-00086868

John Cassidy, “The Old Policy Issues Behind the New Banking Turmoil,” New Yorker, March 13, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-old-policy-issues-behind-the-new-banking-turmoil

Telis Demos, “Were SVB and Signature Bank Just Bailed Out by the U.S. Government?” Wall Street Journal, March 13, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/were-banks-just-bailed-out-by-the-government-6b0a582f

Erica Xuewei Jiang et al., “Monetary Tightening and U.S. Bank Fragility in 2023: Mark-to-Market Losses and Uninsured Depositor Runs?” SSRN, March 13, 2023, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4387676

Eric Lutz, “The Silicon Valley Bank Crisis Is Complicated. But Donald Trump’s Role In It Isn’t,” Vanity Fair, March 13, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/silicon-valley-bank-collapse

David J. Lynch and Tony Romm, “Washington’s bank rescue fails to erase all doubts,” Washington Post, March 13, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2023/03/13/silicon-valley-bank-doubts/

Jeff Stein, “Is this a bailout and 6 other questions about the SVB collapse,” Washington Post, March 13, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2023/03/13/svb-bank-bailout-fed/

Zachary D. Carter, “This Bank Panic Should Not Exist,” Vanity Fair, March 14, 2023, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/03/silicon-valley-bank-run-panic-should-not-exist

Karl Evers-Hillstrom, “Silicon Valley, Signature banks lobbied hard to loosen bank rules,” Hill, March 14, 2023, https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3898389-silicon-valley-signature-banks-lobbied-hard-to-loosen-banking-rules/

Myriam Balezou, “Credit Suisse Is In Crisis. What Went Wrong?” Bloomberg, March 15, 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-15/credit-suisse-what-s-going-on-and-why-is-cs-stock-falling

William D. Cohan, “Two Days in the Valley,” Puck, March 15, 2023, https://puck.news/two-days-in-the-valley/

Nicholas Jasinski, “How SVB Triggered Credit Suisse’s Latest Mess—and Sparked Fears of a Financial Crisis,” Barron’s, March 15, 2023, https://www.barrons.com/articles/credit-suisse-svb-banking-crisis-3faac588

Simon Foy, “Is Credit Suisse, the bad apple of European banking, really ‘too big to fail, too big to be saved’?” Telegraph, March 16, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/03/15/credit-suisse-share-price-bailout/

Telis Demos, “Banks’ Big Plan Might Solve the Immediate Problem, but Not the Bigger Ones,” Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/banks-big-plan-might-solve-the-immediate-problem-but-not-the-bigger-ones-f348488c

Izabella Kaminska, “Bad bonds risk bringing down banks, warns ‘Dr Doom,’” Politico, March 16, 2023, https://www.politico.eu/article/bad-bonds-risk-bringing-down-banks-warns-dr-doom-nouriel-roubini-svb/

Brian Swint, “Credit Suisse Stock Surges as Central Bank Loan and Debt Buybacks Tame Panic,” Barron’s, March 16, 2023, https://www.barrons.com/articles/credit-suisse-buy-back-debt-svb-banks-crisis-bf792d0d

Stephen Wilmot, “Panic Abates at Credit Suisse. Now Comes the Hard Part,” Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/panic-abates-at-credit-suisse-now-comes-the-hard-part-2b93c578

Jacky Wong, “The SVB Tremors Will Shake SoftBank,” Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-svb-tremors-will-shake-softbank-dc7fab4

Margot Patrick, Justin Baer, and Dana Cimilluca, “UBS Nears Deal to Take Over Credit Suisse,” Wall Street Journal, March 18, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-in-talks-to-take-over-credit-suisse-ed932b01

William D. Cohan, “The Last Days of SVB,” Puck, March 19, 2023, https://puck.news/the-last-days-of-svb/

David Goldman, “FDIC sells most of failed Signature Bank to Flagstar,” CNN, March 19, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/19/investing/fdic-signature-bank-assets-flagstar-hnk-intl/index.html

Margot Patrick et al., “UBS Agrees to Buy Credit Suisse for More Than $3 Billion,” Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/ubs-offers-1-billion-to-take-over-credit-suisse-bfac51fa

Marion Halftermeyer and Myriam Balezou, “How Scandal and Mistrust Ended Credit Suisse’s 166-Year Run,” Bloomberg, March 20, 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-19/how-scandal-and-mistrust-ended-credit-suisse-s-166-year-history

Joe Rennison, “Banks Remain Under Pressure as Investors Eye Fallout From Rescue Deals,” New York Times, March 20, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/20/business/markets-today.html

Dave Gilson, “Many U.S. Banks Face the Same Risks That Brought Down Silicon Valley Bank,” Stanford Graduate School of Business, March 20, 2023, https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/many-us-banks-face-same-risks-brought-down-silicon-valley-bank

Justin Lahart, “The Fed Flies in the Dark,” Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fed-flies-in-the-dark-30768449

Ashley Rindsberg, “How the Bank Collapse Goes Nuclear,” Tablet, March 22, 2023, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/how-bank-crisis-goes-nuclear

Vivien Lou Chen, “Moody’s sees risk that U.S. banking ‘turmoil’ can’t be contained,” MarketWatch, March 23, 2023, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/moodys-sees-risk-that-u-s-banking-turmoil-cant-be-contained-f478df49

Joy Wiltermuth, “‘This is a risk confronting all banks,’ ex-FDIC chief Sheila Bair tells MarketWatch,” MarketWatch, March 23, 2023, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/regional-banks-get-the-attention-but-worries-are-more-widespread-says-ex-fdic-chief-bair-a7e7eb56

Telis Demos, “Welcome to the Superprime Banking Crisis,” Wall Street Journal, March 25, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/welcome-to-the-superprime-banking-crisis-9ab6b6d2

Bill Cohan, “A Bear Stearns Shit Sandwich in Switzerland,” Puck, March 29, 2023, https://puck.news/a-bear-stearns-shit-sandwich-in-switzerland/

Nouriel Roubini, “‘Most U.S. banks are technically near insolvency, and hundreds are already fully insolvent,’ Roubini says,” MarketWatch, April 1, 2023, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-u-s-banks-are-technically-near-insolvency-and-hundreds-are-already-fully-insolvent-roubini-says-18b89f92

Biz Carson, Karen Breslau, and John Gittelsohn, “Bank Turmoil Collides With Tech Slump in Battered San Francisco,” Bloomberg, April 2, 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-02/san-francisco-s-feeling-the-pain-of-the-banking-crisis-big-tech-layoffs

Alexander Saeedy and Laura Cooper, “SVB Collapse Complicates Banks’ Efforts to Unload More Than $25 Billion of Junk Debt,” Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/svb-collapse-complicates-banks-efforts-to-unload-more-than-25-billion-of-junk-debt-a19ae78d

Nick Timiraos, “Fed Official: ‘We Need to Be Cautious’ on Raising Rates After Bank Failures,” Wall Street Journal, April 11, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/fed-official-we-need-to-be-cautious-on-raising-rates-after-bank-failures-f04b23ed

Aaron Back, “First Republic Joins the Living Dead,” Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/first-republic-joins-the-living-dead-3a7704ec

Aaron Back, “First Republic’s Catch-22,” Wall Street Journal, April 26, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/first-republics-catch-22-9e45abbc

Janet H. Cho, “House Investigating SF Fed’s Role in SVB Collapse as Regulators Prepare Reports,” Barron’s, April 27, 2023, https://www.barrons.com/articles/house-investigating-sf-feds-role-svb-collapse-e40862fa

Andrew Ackerman, David Benoit, and Rachel Louise Ensign, “JPMorgan, PNC Bidding for First Republic as Part of FDIC Takeover,” Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/jpmorgan-pnc-bid-to-buy-first-republic-as-part-of-fdic-takeover-aeb936a0

Rachel Siegel, “Fed says it must strengthen banking rules after SVB’s collapse,” Washington Post, April 28, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/28/silicon-valley-bank-collapse-investigation/

Lauren Hirsch, Maureen Farrell, and Jeanna Smialek, “Regulators Prepare to Seize and Sell First Republic,” New York Times, April 30, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/business/first-republic-seizure-fdic.html

Telis Demos and Aaron Back, “With First Republic, JPMorgan’s Dimon Gets Over Financial Crisis Laments,” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/with-first-republic-jpmorgans-dimon-gets-over-financial-crisis-laments-6d19041f

Rachel Louise Ensign and Ben Eisen, “First Republic Bank Is Seized, Sold to JPMorgan in Second-Largest U.S. Bank Failure,” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/first-republic-bank-is-seized-sold-to-jpmorgan-in-second-largest-u-s-bank-failure-5cec723

Jennifer Hughes and Antoine Gara, “Investors warn of First Republic aftershocks at gloomy Milken gathering,” Financial Times, May 1, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/08907106-b792-4b94-b14e-f2d38c72bc48

Rachel Louise Ensign et al., “Why First Republic Bank Collapsed,” Wall Street Journal, May 1, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/first-republic-bank-collapse-why-banking-crisis-61660d96

Karl Russell and Christine Zhang, “3 Failed Banks This Year Were Bigger Than 25 That Crumbled in 2008,” New York Times, May 1, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/business/bank-failures-svb-first-republic-signature.html

Financial Times, “First Republic/JPMorgan: small deal has big implications,” May 2, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/917878b6-713a-4acb-aa71-2254819ae245

Brooke Masters et al., “First Republic rescue fails to arrest slide in US regional bank shares,” Financial Times, May 2, 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/32342f88-2d24-4198-90f1-89eb23bd1def

Justin Lahart, “Rate Hikes Can Wait,” Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/rate-hikes-can-wait-b54004a5

Matthew Monks, “PacWest Is Weighing Strategic Options, Including Possible Sale,” Bloomberg, May 3, 2023, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-03/pacwest-said-to-weigh-strategic-options-including-possible-sale

Jeremy C. Owens and Bill Peters, “PacWest stock plummets more than 50% after report of potential sale; other bank stocks fall too,” MarketWatch, May 3, 2023, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/pacwest-stock-plummets-more-than-50-after-report-of-potential-sale-other-bank-stocks-join-in-decline-dbb89ee

Telis Demos, “Banks Are in the Grips of Investor Crisis of Confidence,” Wall Street Journal, May 7, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/banks-are-in-the-grips-of-investor-crisis-of-confidence-62e05b4

Matt Egan, “Janet Yellen told bank CEOs more mergers may be necessary, sources say,” CNN, May 19, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/19/investing/janet-yellen-bank-mergers/index.html

Nick Timiraos, “Jerome Powell’s Big Problem Just Got Even More Complicated,” Wall Street Journal, June 12, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/fed-jerome-powell-big-problem-more-complicated-ba27ece4

Andrew Ackerman, “Pay Could Be Seized From Failed Banks’ Executives Under Senate Bill,” Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-clawback-bill-would-take-pay-from-failed-bank-executives-2961137c

Lauren Thomas et al., “Banc of California Agrees to Buy PacWest as Regional Lenders Seek Strength Together,” Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/banc-of-california-pacwest-in-advanced-talks-to-combine-d9e48a1f?mod=itp_wsj&mod=djemITP_h

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