S&P 500 slumps as SVB Financial leads rout in banks ahead of Friday's jobs data

By Yasin Ebrahim

Investing.com -- The S&P 500 slumped Thursday, pressured by an SVB Financial-led slump in banking stocks just as investors remain on edge ahead of Friday’s jobs report that many fear could come in hot and cement the return of aggressive Federal Reserve rate hikes.

The S&P 500 fell 1.6%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.5%, or 486 points, the Nasdaq Composite was down 1.8%.

SVB Financial Group (NASDAQ:SIVB) slumped more than 55% after the bank announced a $2.25 billion equity raise after revealing a $1.8B net loss and delivered negative annual and first quarter guidance amid the impact from higher interest rates.

Unlike most banks, which are helped by rising rates, SIVB is “generally hurt by them,” Oppenheimer says, as its deposit base is “generally made up of commercial customers who are rate-sensitive.”

The slump in SIVB further soured the sentiment on banking stocks, which have been pressured by a deeper inversion in the yield curve – a harbinger for a recession.

The yield on the 2-year Treasury bond briefly jumped more than 100 basis points above the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, the deepest inversion since 1981.

Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC), Wells Fargo &Company (NYSE:WFC), and JPMorgan Chase&Co (NYSE:JPM) were down more than 5%, while crypto bank Silvergate Capital (NYSE:SI) plummeted 20% as it looks to wind down operations following a $1B loss in Q4.

Technology also played a role in the broader market, paced by a more than 1% stumble in Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META).

General Electric (NYSE:GE), up nearly 7%, bucked the trend lower after it reaffirmed 2023 guidance, forecasting adjusted earnings per share of $1.60 to $2.00 high-single-digit organic revenue growth.

PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) also remained above the flatline after chief executive Daniel Schulman said the company was seeing better-than-expected performance across the business amid a pick-up in consumer spending.

In other news, General Motors (NYSE:GM) fell 4% after the automaker flagged a $1.5B hit from its voluntary separation program that will seek to buy out the “majority” of salaried stuff.

The slump on Wall Street comes just a day ahead of the nonfarm payrolls report that is expected to show that the economy created 205,000 jobs in February.