Shares of European banking groups fell on Friday morning, weighed down by investor concerns after the difficulties encountered by the American bank SVB Financial Group.
Around 9:50 a.m., the title of Socit Generale lost 5.14% to 25.35 euros, BNP Paribas 4.33% to 59.93 euros and Crdit Agricole 3.35% to 10.92 euros.
Elsewhere in Europe, the German bank Deutsche Bank lost 6.95%, the British Barclays 5.04%, the Italian Intesa Sanpaolo 3.24%, and the Swiss UBS more than 4%.
This downward movement was initiated by Wall Street on Thursday, with a fall of 6.20% for Bank of America, 6.18% for Wells Fargo and 4.10% for Citigroup. For the vast majority of analysts, it is linked to the announcements on Wednesday by the SVB Financial Group of a major capital increase of 2.25 billion dollars.
A privileged partner of the technology sector, SVB is thus seeking to increase its liquidity to strengthen its balance sheet, which has been weakened by customer withdrawals.
The group also hastily sold a portfolio of 21 billion dollars of financial securities, which earned it an estimated loss of 1.8 billion.
This small panic was triggered on the theme of the bankrun, a chain reaction that begins with massive withdrawals of customers, explains AFP David Bnamou, director of investments at Axiom Alternative Investments.
But according to a note from SPI Asset Management analyst Stephen Innes, the risk of a capital or liquidity incident among the big banks is…low.
Analysts also note that this correction comes after a rather good start to the year for banks on the stock market.
They remain for the vast majority in the green since the beginning of the year.