Asia-Pacific Markets Fall on Bank Fears, Credit Suisse Announces ‘Decisive Action' to Borrow

Miners and the banking industry dragged down the economy's decline by 1.43%. The Topix in Japan fell by 1.35% Thursday morning and the country's February trade data came back lower than expected. The loss of 0.7% After the collapse of SVB last week, the second-largest bank failure in U.S history, investors began to perceive default as more likely. This has caused "widespread concern" about the possibility of contagion spreading while interest rates remain high.

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According to government data exports rose 6.5% in February while imports increased 8.3%. Analysts believe that small banks will try to maintain liquidity in the event they have to make withdrawals from depositors. This could lead to tightening of bank lending standards, which could impact aggregate demand. The firm stated that about half of U.S. industrial and commercial lending is done by banks with assets less than $250 billion. The SNB and Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority jointly stated that Credit Suisse has met the higher capital requirements and liquidity requirements for systemically important banks. Credit Suisse shares fell Wednesday as the largest shareholder of the bank said that it would not provide additional financial assistance. Shares fell by more than 23% in heavy volume at the opening of the market. The troubles at the Swiss bank have rekindled the turmoil in financial stocks. This has made it especially difficult for U.S. mid-sized banks. "We can't because we would increase the rate to 10%. The shares of Societe Generale and Italy's Monte dei Paschi as well as UniCredit were halted. Beata Manthey, Citi strategist, wrote that "the failure of Silicon Valley Bank has spilled over into the European equity markets." Manthey pointed out that the conditions are already favorable for profit taking on European markets. "Despite being cut from maximum longs just one month ago, investors are still net long on European Banks. -- Fred Imbert, Michael Bloom