Stock Market Price Effect of the Silicon Valley Bank Failure – A Pre and Within Analysis

Abstract

State-chartered commercial bank – Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was the primary subsidiary of SVB Financial Group. In March 2023, after central bank–endorsed interest rate hikes during the 2021–2023 inflation surge, there was a bank run on its deposits, which led to its collapse. This marked the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history and took place alongside the March 2023 United States bank failures. This paper evaluated the differential effect of Silicon Valley Bank failure on the stock market. Two objectives were pivotal, namely the examination of differential stock price performance of SVB prior to failure. Secondly is the examination of the differential effect of SVB failure on the US S&P500 stock price performance. Applying a t-test statistics for difference in means, the results show a significant difference in mean stock price of SVB between a month and two weeks period before SVB failure at P<0.05, with higher variance within the week before failure. Furthermore, the t-test results disclose a highly significant difference in US S&P500 mean stock price between February 2023 (a month before failure) and March 2023 (within the month of failure) at P<0.001 with a high variance in March; however, this effect did not last long. Accordingly, the paper concludes that the failure of a prominent financial institution may trigger ripples in a major stock market index. Additionally, investors should be cautious of an unprecedent and abnormal higher variance in a corporate stock price as this might be an ominous indicator of potential financial failure. This paper contributes a current information for managers and particularly for speculative investors for decisions on selling short or long. It recommends further research to examine the effect of SVB failure and FDIC intervention on stock markets.