Stock Market Recap | March 22nd, 2023

An extremely volatile week that moved on breaking banking news.

To start, the announced government prop-up of Silicon Valley Bank calmed investors, but then bank stock prices dropped. Mid-week, a consortium of private banks announced their financial support of failing First Republic Bank, after which its stock price rose, then fell. Friday, UBS announced a take-over of failing Credit Suisse, after which bank stock prices rose, then fell.

Continued bank stock price declines indicate many investors just do not yet believe the banking crisis is over or contained. Time will tell on that.

In the meantime, it was a mixed week for the broad market. Most of our gains continue to arise from short positions, with our long positions varying from continuing slumps to recovering rises – and big upward moves for gold stocks.

As with prior weeks, analytics do not find many trades – the institutional investors remain steadfast holders, although that means they (and we) are enduring unusually high historic levels of loss in some long positions at the moment. Very few trades for our newest subscribers to act on.