The Yahoo Finance Live team discusses Western Alliance leading the regional bank stock rally, regional bank turmoil, and PacWest stock movement.
Video Transcript
AKIKO FUJITA: Let's move on here to the regional banks. Stocks there surging today, with PacWest, Western Alliance, and Zion all ending the day up over 10%. PacWest ended the day up more than 20%. The banks got some good news on Tuesday when Western Alliance reported that its deposits grew by more than $2 billion since its quarter ended. That eased worries about the health of US regional lenders.
You know, this is one of those things, Seana, that you get the sense that even though we saw a big rally today on some of those names, any bad news comes in and those jitters creep right back in. At least for today, though, we are seeing the sentiment turn a little more positive and potentially easing some of those concerns that we've seen percolate into the market over the last several weeks.
SEANA SMITH: Yeah, that certainly is reflected in the share price action today. Western Alliance really trying to distance itself from the turmoil that has faced the regional bank sector here over the last several weeks. When it comes to what the Street's saying on this, KBW's Chris McGratty, he was saying that this marks another positive update from Western Alliance, and the stock now starting to decouple from PacWest. And PacWest, we know, shares still off. They did rise about 20% today. But they're still off about 70% since the start of the year. So under a tremendous amount of pressure. Western Alliance is also still off just about 40%.
But more and more on the Street are starting to see-- I guess get a more optimistic view of some of these names. We know Bank of America resumed their coverage on Western Alliance this week with a buy rating, $42 price target, saying that their business model is, quote, "more resilient than perceived." When it comes to the percentage of their deposits that are insured, Western Alliance is right around 79% higher than it was at the end of the first quarter, which, of course, is something that investors want to see, Akiko.
