Busted Banks Wipe Out $54 Billion of Stocks, Bonds During Turmoil
- Debt and equity buried as four regional lenders collapse
- It’s capitalism: ‘This is how the market is supposed to work’
A First Republic Bank office in San Francisco, California.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The collapses that claimed four US lenders this year have stuck investors with more than $54 billion of losses, after First Republic Bank’s demise added to the pile of nearly worthless securities and sent some peers into a new tailspin.
The tally includes $46.9 billion of market capitalization erased since Feb. 28, just before the bank turmoil began in earnest, and about $7.5 billion gone from bonds and preferred shares, according to calculations by Bloomberg. Combined, the shares of all four as of Tuesday had only about $725 million of value remaining — and when bank failures are completely resolved, there’s typically nothing left at all.