Dow Jones makes a sudden regain after major SVB-related downturn

Over the past five days, the Dow Jones Industrial Average which tracks 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States, has been plummeting in value.

On Monday March 13, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost enough value to register its lowest value in over one month, at 31,800.

During the five day moving average, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost 716 points and by the middle of the day during yesterday’s trading session in New York, It was clear to see that the Dow Jones had sunk to its lowest point since before the middle of last month, however at the end of the trading day, a very sudden rebound was apparent, and although still down over the course of five trading days, a lot of ground was suddenly recovered before the trading day finished in New York yesterday.

One of the possible reasons for the sudden drop in overall value could be that a plan to backstop all the depositors in the now infamous Silicon Valley Bank, along with other extraordinary measures, failed to boost bank shares.

This resulted in an immediate 90 point loss, however rather interestingly the slump was short lived despite the gravity of the catastrophic demise of Silicon Valley Bank, where many corporates had funds deposited.

What is clear is that confidence in the banks has been once again called into question, and many stocks in large, well established banks with publicly listed shares have declined since the Silicon Valley Bank’s demise was cited as the second largest banking collapse in US history, despite all of the regulatory overhauls that have been instigated since the 2008/2009 financial crisis.

Large tier 1 investment banks including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup experienced downturns, however smaller regional banks were even worse off, with FirstRepublic having lost 61% of its share price by end of trading yesterday.

Tech stocks such as Apple, and big pharma companies have held up their side, which means that although the drop in the Dow Jones was high, it could have been higher without the non-bank industrial giants keeping their stability.

The markets have yet to be shown the full scale of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, as many firms which withdrew their capital and are now looking at alternative custodial services may report their corporate policy decisions to shareholders and often it is the case that strategic changes can affect shareholder confidence, albeit temporarily.

Volatility in the indices is therefore here – not just within the tech-orientated NASDAQ which has a lot of Silicon Valley based high technology firms listed on it which had venture capital deposits with Silicon Valley Bank , and with the waves felt across the country following Silicon Valley Bank’s demise, it is not surprising.