Happy Friday, everyone. It's been one week since Silicon Valley Bank failed, and the good news is that things seem mostly okay. The decision last Sunday by banking regulators to expand FDIC insurance in order to fully backstop depositors appears to have had its desired effect, and alarmist fears of bank runs across the land have not materialized. Still, there's reason to be uneasy.
A separate banking disaster is unfolding across the Atlantic as initial attempts to prop up Credit Suisse have so far failed to reassure investors, leading the bank's share price to plunge and the cost of insuring its debt to soar. It's unclear how much contagion the collapse of Credit Suisse would produce, but it's hard to see the markets shrugging off such an event.
