Breaking news: Silicon Valley Bank collapse

The context: Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was one of America’s 20 biggest banks since its founding in the early 80s, and a key lender to the California VC and tech space. This means its insolvency massively affects the tech industry, companies in the tech-heavy Nasdaq, and the many cryptocurrencies (including Ripple, and some stablecoins) which were exposed to the bank.

What it means for traders: The unexpected news has caused lots of volatility in the market. Traders can no longer directly short SVB, which was closed to traders on Friday, upon its insolvency. However, there are scores of traders speculating on banking shares in general – particularly other smaller, regional banks such as First Republic Bank – as well as affected cryptocurrencies with exposure to SVB like Ripple and US indices like the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow Jones.

Why did Silicon Valley Bank collapse? On Wednesday 8 March, SVB issued a statement saying that it had sold “approximately $21 billion of securities” and planned to sell a further “$1.25 billion of its common stock and $500 million of depositary shares”. The share price nosedived over 60% in the next 24 hours.

On Friday 10 March, regulator DFPI (the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation) announced in a short press release on its website that it “has taken possession of Silicon Valley Bank, citing inadequate liquidity and insolvency”.

The market experienced rampant volatility over Friday and the weekend. On Sunday 12 March, the Federal Reserve and DFPI announced a backstop for SVB depositors, as well as an emergency liquidity facility for other banks exposed, sparking an initial rebound in risk sentiment at the Asia open, though this has sine fizzled amid a renewed bout of contagion worries upon the opening of European markets.

What you can trade:

Trade CFDs on the MT5 platform with Pepperstone on the following banks:

First Republic Bank/CA

JPMorgan Chase & Co

Citigroup Inc

Bank of America Corp

Wells Fargo & Co

Barclays PLC

Lloyds Banking Group PLC

Fifth Third Bancorp

Huntington Bancshares Inc/OH

KeyCorp

M&T Bank Corp

Northern Trust Corp

PNC Financial Services Group I

US Bancorp

Bank of Ireland Group PLC

HSBC Holdings PLC

Investec PLC

NatWest Group PLC

Standard Chartered PLC

Virgin Money UK PLC

Commerzbank AG

Deutsche Bank AG

Hang Seng Bank Ltd

Industrial & Commercial Bank o

BOC Hong Kong Holdings Ltd

China Merchants Bank Co Ltd

Bank of China Ltd

HSBC Holdings PLC

China Construction Bank Corp

Australia & New Zealand Banking

Bendigo & Adelaide Bank Ltd

Bank of Queensland Ltd

Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Link Administration Holdings L

Macquarie Group Ltd

National Australia Bank Ltd

Virgin Money UK PLC

Also trade on indices with CFDs on the MT5, TradingView and MT4 platforms:

S&P 500 (called the US500 Index on our platform)

NASDAQ (called the NAS100 US Tech 100 Index on our platform)

Dow Jones (called the US30 US Wall Street 30 Index on our platform)

VIX (called the US Volatility Index on our platform)

DAX 40 (called the GER40 Germany 40 Index 1 on our platform)

FTSE 100 (called the UK100 on our platform)

CAC 40 (called the FRA40 France 40 Index on our platform)

ASX 200 (called the AUS00 on our platform)

Hang Seng (called the HK50 Hong Kong Index on our platform)

Certain Pepperstone clients may also speculate on cryptocurrency Ripple, which had direct exposure to SVB, and many other biggest cryptocurrencies around the world, including Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Find out how you can trade with live data and the latest market news as it happens with MT5