Finance
Signature Bank Shareholders Lose Everything As Regulator Shuts It Down — Just Days After Silicon Valley Bank Collapse


A branch of Signature Bank is photographed, late Sunday, March 12, 2023, in New York. Regulators … [+]
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Key Takeaways
- Signature Bank was closed down by the state regulators on Sunday, following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank just two days prior
- Like Silicon Valley Bank, investors in Signature Bank have been wiped out, but the regulators have stepped in to guarantee 100% of deposits within the bank
- Banking stocks were down heavily on Monday, especially smaller regional banks such as First Republic Bank (-61.83%) and Western Alliance Bancorp (-47.06%).
Following the dramatic collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) on Friday, the regulators stepped in on Sunday to provide emergency support to depositors and the banking system. But it’s not the only bank that was left reeling from volatility.
Between Wednesday and Friday last week, Signature Bank stock fell over 32.27%, bringing the total loss for investors to 75.84% over the last year. By Sunday, that loss was at 100%.
On the same day as they announced the support for SVB depositors, the joint statement from the Treasury, Federal Reserve and the FDIC explained that state regulators would also be shutting down Signature Bank.
“We are also announcing a similar systemic risk exception for Signature Bank, which was closed today by its state chartering authority. All depositors of this institution will be made whole. No losses will be borne by the taxpayer.
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Shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected. Senior management has also been removed.”
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Who was Signature Bank?
Signature Bank was founded in New York in 2001, with a business model catering to high net worth clients and a high tough, personal approach. Over time the business expanded and changed, and in 2018 they began to work with the crypto sector.
Crypto businesses often find it challenging to access banking services, and the fact that Signature Bank offered them meant their crypto links grew quickly.
By February 2023, 30% of the bank’s deposits came from the cryptocurrency sector, including major reserves for stablecoin USDC.
In late July 2022, the Financial Times published an article which outlined concerns over the banks concentration in the crypto sector, noting that 8 out of the 12 largest crypto brokers were clients of the bank.
Given that they had come to be known as the ‘crypto bank,’ it’s not too surprising to think that they will have experienced challenges with their client book, given the depths of the current crypto winter.
The circumstances leading to the collapse
It’s no secret that crypto has been hit hard over the last 18 months. Many companies have gone bankrupt, and the ones that remain have had to make serious layoffs and cutbacks in order to stay afloat.
In an environment like this, these types of companies are not going to be adding significant cash to their deposits. In many cases, they’ll be dipping into their rainy day fund to keep the lights on, reducing cash reserves with no short term plan to replace them.
For a bank, this provides challenges with liquidity. As we saw with Silicon Valley Bank, it’s common practice for banks to loan out deposits at longer durations for higher interest rates. It’s the cornerstone of fractional reserve banking, the accepted global banking system.
The full details will come out in the coming weeks and months, but it’s believed that the bank’s already shaky financial position (the stock was down over 62% even before the Silicon Valley Bank news on Thursday) and the links to crypto, caused depositors to panic late Friday, causing another bank run.
What happens to Signature Bank investors?
As outlined in the statement from the Fed, the Treasury and the FDIC, Signature Bank shareholders will see their stock value go to zero. That’s part of the risk of investing, and unfortunately those investors will have to chalk this one up to a learning experience.
It’s a key example of why diversification is so important. Smaller companies like Signature Bank can offer enticing potential returns for investors, but that doesn’t come without risk.
Signature Bank stock went from under $80 in late 2020 to hit an all-time high of $366 at the start of 2022. And now it’s worth $0.
Large banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo are highly unlikely to see those sorts of returns, but they’re also far less likely to go to $0 as well. Investing across companies of all sizes and all industries allows investors to gain exposure to potential big winners, while not risking it all on them.
What happens to Signature Bank depositors?
The measures announced by the regulators means that depositors won’t lose anything. Unlike the 2008 financial crisis, the current banking issues are liquidity problems. There are assets that back all of the deposits in the bank, they’re just locked up in long term investments.
Protection from the regulators will mean that depositors will be able to get access to their cash if they need it, but it also means that taxpayers won’t be on the hook to make up the difference.
All that’s being provided is short term liquidity, to allow the system to continue to function as it should.
Not only that, but it has also been announced that new measures will be put in place to allow banks to access short term capital if they are impacted by liquidity issues like this in the future.
The fallout for banking stocks
It’s not good news for regional banks right now. Account holders are a little nervous, and we’re seeing a flight of cash from small banks into large ‘too big to fail’ ones. Whether this is necessary given the Feds intervention is debatable, but it’s happening anyway.
On Thursday, a number of regional banks saw major value wiped off their market cap, including First Republic Bank (-61.83%), PacWest Bancorp (-21.05%), Western Alliance Bancorp (-47.06%) and Zions Bancorp (-25.72%).
The big banks were also down, but given the level of general banking negativity, these drops could be considered fairly minor. JPMorgan Chase closed Thursday down 1.8%, Bank of America fell 5.85%, Wells Fargo dropped 7.13% and Citi was down 7.47%.
However, all of these banks were up in after hours trading on Thursday.
Most analysts agree that there is no fundamental concern about the stability of the banking system. This has been an issue of liquidity and the ability for banks to access their assets fast enough to pay out depositors, not a concern over the actual fundamental value of those assets like in 2008.
The bottom line
It’s been a nerve wracking few days for investors holding bank stocks, and we’re likely to see some continued volatility in the coming days. It’s going to be very interesting to see how the Fed responds at the next FOMC meeting, as it’s hard to see them raising rates given the turmoil of the past few days.
As always, there’s no way of knowing exactly what will happen, but if the Fed does pause their rate hikes, markets could rally. Or they might charge on regardless, and markets could tumble.
It’s important to stay invested and diversified for long term returns, but protecting your downside when possible is incredibly important as well.
Hedging is a great way to do this, but it’s a pretty tall order for retail investors. It usually involves complex trades and financial instruments, which can backfire if you don’t know what you’re doing. That’s why we created our AI-powered Portfolio Protection.
Every week our AI runs a sensitivity analysis on your portfolio and assesses it against various forms of risk. It then automatically implements hedging strategies, and rebalances these every week. It’s cutting edge tech, and it’s available on all of our Foundation Kits.
Finance
The Calculus Behind The ESG Battle Between The White House And Capitol Hill


AFP via Getty Images
When President Biden used his first veto (less than 60 days after his party no longer controlled both houses of Congress), the media reported on the event with much fanfare. That it had to do with a very narrow subject didn’t matter. But was all the chest pumping justified? Could it be that the issue was already moot even before Congress passed the joint resolution that inspired the veto?
On Wednesday, March 1, 2023, the Senate voted 50-46 to overturn the Department of Labor’s new Fiduciary Rule. This new Rule was to replace a similar Rule promulgated by the DOL under the Trump administration. At issue was the application of ESG criteria by ERISA fiduciaries to retirement plan investments.
What does ESG stand for?
“ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance,” says Andrew Poreda, VP and ESG senior research analyst at Sage Advisory Services in Austin, Texas. “ESG factors are non-financial (yet important) factors that are critical to the success of a corporation or entity.”
The concept isn’t entirely new. A similar philosophy called “Socially Responsible Investing” (“SRI”) emerged as a favorite among activists in the 1980s. It primarily targeted institutional investments in South Africa.
Going further back, religious organizations have practiced this form of exclusionary investing for quite some time. For example, it’s not unusual to see portfolios for church groups prohibit investments in “sin” stocks (alcohol, tobacco, and gambling) or stocks in the defense industry.
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Why is ESG important?
If ESG is just an SRI rose by another name, why has it suddenly become the center of such controversy? In short, it’s because it’s a little hard to define, and when it’s defined, it seems to run contrary to fiduciary practices.
Lawrence (Larry) Starr, of Cornerstone Retirement, Inc./Qualified Plan Consultants in West Springfield, Massachusetts, says, “There is no way to mandate something that is so poorly defined and differs widely in application from company to company and from investor to investor.”
As one of those investors, however, it’s critical you understand how other investors view ESG for the same reason it’s important for value investors to understand how growth investors think and vice versa.
“ESG is data that can provide a more complete picture of how a company operates beyond financial analysis alone,” says Bud Sturmak, the head of impact investing and a partner at Perigon Wealth Management in New York City. “ESG analysis helps to better understand a company’s overall stability, its opportunity to create shareholder value, and its exposure to critical business risks. ESG data can help inform sound investment decisions and allow you to tailor your portfolio to reflect your personal values.”
What is the main focus of ESG?
Starr says the primary reason ESG exists is “to provide ‘socially conscious’ investors with guidance as to a company’s attention to these (not well-defined) subjects.”
Again, if you look at things from the point of view of proponents, ESG, no matter how ill-defined up close, has a sincere intention when looking at it from the 30,000-foot level.
“The main purpose of ESG investing is to reward good corporate citizenship and encourage companies to act responsibly by allocating capital to companies that share the investor’s values,” says Rob Reilly, a member of the finance faculty at the Providence College School of Business and an investment consultant at North Atlantic Investment Partners in Boston. “Environmental criteria consider how a company deals with environmental risks and natural resource management, including corporate policies addressing climate change. Social criteria evaluate how a company manages relationships with customers, suppliers, employees, and the communities where they operate. Governance deals with a company’s leadership, board of director diversity, internal controls, executive pay, audits, and shareholder rights.”
This broad objective can have multiple tactics. How do these varying approaches impact the definition of ESG?
“This depends on one’s perspective,” says Matthew Eickman, national retirement practice leader at Qualified Plan Advisors in Omaha. “At a binary level, it’s either to invest in companies in an effort to support or advance social and environmental agendas, or it’s to invest in companies whose commitment to environmental, social, and/or governance issues situates the companies to perform well in the future.”
This confusion can lead some to question the real aim of ESG.
“It is a Machiavellian and subversive attempt by ESG woke proponents to seize and control how boards of directors in America run their company on ESG goals rather than profit and loss goals,” says Terry Morgan, President of OK401k in Oklahoma City.
What did the President and Congress hope to achieve by their actions?
Given the passion ESG generates on both sides, is it any surprise that it has become a political hot potato? And when something becomes a political hot potato, you need to guard against hyperbole.
“First, it should be noted that there is a disconnect between what the bill does and what some politicians are claiming it does,” says Poreda. “The intent of Congress’s joint resolution appears to be aimed at preventing retirement plans from investing in strategies that are aimed at pushing political and ideological agenda (e.g., ESG strategies are seen as being aligned with climate activism and ‘woke’ agendas).”
Indeed, it could be that both proponents and opponents of ESG may not have read the fine print of either the Trump or Biden Rules.
In a post published in the Harvard Law School Forum, Max M. Schanzenbach (Northwestern Pritzker School of Law), and Robert H. Sitkoff (Harvard Law School) wrote, “Much of the confusion that the 2022 Biden Rule endorses ESG investing, and that the 2020 Trump Rule opposed it, traces to the original proposals for those rules. The Biden Proposal favored ESG factors by deeming them ‘often’ required by fiduciary duty. The Trump Proposal disfavored ESG factors by subjecting them to enhanced fiduciary scrutiny. However, following the notice-and-comment period, the Department significantly revised those proposals before finalization. Neither final rule singled out ESG investing for favored or disfavored treatment. The final Trump Rule did not use the term ‘ESG.’ The regulatory text of the final Biden Rule refers once to ESG investing, but only to state that ESG factors ‘may’ be ‘relevant to a risk and return analysis,’ depending ‘on the individual facts and circumstances.’ This statement is true for all investment factors, ESG or otherwise.”
Certainly, political leaders possess the legal literacy to discern this similarity. Why, then, did we have all the fireworks surrounding the Joint Resolution?
“Unfortunately, this issue has become politicized and certain politicians believed these factors were being taken into account to achieve political rather than financial goals,” says Robert Lowe, a partner (through his professional corporation) of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP in Los Angeles.
Clearly, there is no consensus on the meaning of ESG. Perhaps, given there are multiple ideas concerning the definition of “ESG,” it’s only natural that the reasons behind the various maneuverings might also be divergent.
“Different supporters of the vetoed proposal had different intents,” says Albert Feuer of the Law Offices of Albert Feuer in Forest Hills, New York. “Many supporters believe risk return analysis should be subordinated to ESG factors that are not called ESG factors, such as investing in United States fossil fuel ventures to preserve jobs in those ventures even if they have poor risk-return profiles. These same supporters criticize ESG advocates of the divestment fossil fuel investments, which the regulation prohibits absent a showing that these investments will be replaced by those with a better risk-return profile. Other supporters have little confidence in financial analysts and free markets. They believe ESG factors are inherently bad and thus fiduciaries should be prohibited from considering them absent compelling evidence that in a particular situation, such factors would improve the risk-return profile of an investment.”
Marcia S. Wagner, Esq., president/founder of The Wagner Law Group in Boston, Massachusetts, in a Forbes.com interview, said that President Biden faced pressure from his own party. Starr agrees. He says Biden had no choice but “to bow to his far-left constituency, especially since he just approved major drilling for oil in Alaska. This gives him a countervailing argument to show he hasn’t abandoned his ‘progressive’ policies completely.”
In the end, you could have easily predicted the actions by all actors in the dance between the joint resolution and the veto.
“This was a foregone conclusion,” says Eickman. “Biden knew he couldn’t appear weak on this, even if he may not view the DOL regulation as having nearly the impact as Congress had suggested with its votes.”
Finance
Deutsche Bank Should Disclose Its Current Liquidity Levels To Investors


Kai Pfaffenbach
Reuters
Investors’ fear about the financial health of banks globally was palpable today. As they swarm bank after bank, Deutsche Bank was next on their list. They pummeled Deutsche Bank’s stocks and bonds. And the price for protection against a Deutsche Bank’s bond default rose significantly as evidenced in the credit derivatives market.
Nothing new, in particular, came out about Deutsche Bank today. It is not as if market participants only discovered today that Deutsche Bank has a long history of weak risk controls and a list of scandals rivaling Credit Suisse. Every time that there have been scandals about Deutsche Bank’s poor risk management, the stock falls, but eventually investors seem to just shrug their shoulders and move on. Yet, when you look at the stock over a much longer period of time, investors have been showing their discontent with the beleaguered bank for over a decade. Deutsche Bank has never recovered from its high on April 1, 2007. In fact, the stock has fallen almost 95% since then.
Deutsche Bank’s stock price has fallen 95% since 2007.
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Liquidity Risk Is Key
What investors should be monitoring for all banks is how liquid they are, that, is whether they can pay all their obligations when they come due. It is difficult, if not impossible to know, how liquid Deutsche Bank is right now. Banks are only required to disclose financial and risk information on a quarterly basis. By the time, market participants get this information, it is already old.
Deutsche Bank’s Liquidity Coverage Ratio has declined since 2018.
Data from FitchConnect
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According to Deutsche Bank’s Basel III Pillar III Risk Disclosures, as of the end of December 2022, Deutsche Bank’s Liquidity Coverage Ratio was 135%, higher than the minimum requirement of 100%. The figure tells us that at that end of 2022, Deutsche Bank had enough high-quality liquid assets such as cash, money market instruments, and unencumbered investment grade bonds, to cover net cash outflows in periods of stress. That figure has declined by 7% from 2018 when it was at 145%.
In the U.S., as a stand-alone entity, Deutsche Bank’s Liquidity Coverage Ratio at the end of December 2022 was 141%. Banks are not required to disclose this ratio more frequently, so no one outside of Deutsche Bank knows what the LCR is today.
Unlike Silicon Valley Bank, Deutsche Bank has a diversity of funding sources such as retail and corporate deposits from different geographies, short-term and medium-term credit lines, as well as access to wholesale funding. Stable sources of funding are always important, especially right now.
In comparison to its globally systemically important bank (G-SIBs) peers in Europe at the end of 2022, however, Deutsche Bank did not have as high a percent of liquid assets as a percent of total assets. It appears to be less liquid than Barclays, UBS, Société Générale, Credit Suisse, or HSBC HBA . Deutsche Bank’s LCR and Net Stable Funding Ratio, a measure of funding stability for a twelve-month period, are also both lower than most European banks in that peer group.
Most European bank peers are more liquid that Deutsche Bank.
Data from FitchConnect
As of today, the global rating agencies had Deutsche Bank in the A – BBB+ range which is considered investment grade, and the outlook is stable or positive. The very nature of processes that have to be abided by ratings analysts means that market participants always move faster to exhibit what they think of any company.
Current Deutsche Bank ratings and outlook.
FitchConnect
What Deutsche Bank should be doing right now is disclosing granular information about its current liquidity levels, sources of funding, and capital ratios. That certainly would give market participants a good idea of how the bank stands. No one had banking chaos on their bingo card at the end of 2022. So why should we be relying on financial information from then? In this environment, opacity only unnerves market participants even more.
Other Articles By This Author
Deutsche Bank’s Death By A Thousand Cuts Is Not Over
Global Rating Agencies Do Not Sound Optimistic About Deutsche Bank’s Restructuring Plan
Deutsche Bank’s Impending Auf Wiedersehen Will Hurt Americans
Does Greed Drive Deutsche Bank And Other Banks Not To File Suspicious Activity Reports?
Deutsche Bank Needs Serious Laundering
Deutsche and Other Scandal-Plagued Banks Should Learn From Novartis, Tenneco, And Volkswagen
Finance
It’s Time For Some Serious Railroad Regulation


MICHIGAN, UNITED STATES – FEBRUARY 18: A train derails in Michigan with several cars veering off … [+]
Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
There are times that news coverage seems like an ongoing recreation of the Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore movie 50 First Dates. Bad things happen and are then forgotten. Something happens again and rarely is it treated like an ongoing story. The public, other than those directly involved, also forgets and doesn’t press for closer coverage.
A current example is the railroad industry. Take the disastrous accident in East Palestine, Ohio that happened on just before 9p.m. on February 3, 2023. About 50 out of 149 cars derailed, according to ABC News. Out of the cars that went off the rails, 11 carried hazardous waste, including vinyl chloride, ethyl acrylate, and isobutylene. The last two are highly toxic and potentially carcinogenic.
Then came the mandatory evacuation, first within a one-mile radius, then two. Officials conducted a controlled burn of the substances, which turned into a heavy cloud. Eventually, the officials said that air and water samples were deemed safe. Except, the EPA found the chemicals in streams near the derailment site.
Later, large amounts of aquatic life would be found dead, even though officials had kept saying that everything was fine. Thousands of cubic yards of contaminated soil and millions of gallons of liquid waste have been collected. The State of Ohio has filed a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern NSC .
Back on February 21, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sent a letter to the rail line. One part of the multi-page paper: “Major derailments in the past have been followed by calls for reform – and by vigorous resistance by your industry to increased safety measures. This must change.”
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Yes, it must. But while an extreme issue, this isn’t the only rail accident that takes place in a year. In fact, there are literally thousands of varying degrees. Here’s a chart from the Department of Transportation:
Number of accidents involving trains every year.
Department of Transportation
In the latest year for which there is available data, 2021, 8,096 accidents occurred. Again, that could mean anything. But it does include 747 total fatalities and 4,647 injuries. Of those, 11 deaths and 2,577 injuries were of employees. Outside of grade crossings, where most of the troubles occur, there were 1,626 train accidents.
Total incidents in 2020 were 7,785. In 2019, 9,747; 9,682 in 2018; and 9,497 in 2017.
Shifting from such dangers and outcomes for a moment, think back to the impending rail strike in the fall of 2022. Many of the union workers were, and probably still are, deeply angry. Money was an issue, but the big holdup had been around attendance, sick time and scheduling. People get badly hurt working on rail lines and they need time to recover and get medical help. But rail companies, including BNSF Railway Company, owned by Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B with carefully avuncular Warren Buffett, don’t want to spend money on more staff.
No good crying poor. For perspective, the median value for all industries is 7.9%. The heights the railroad industry reaches are the fifth highest of any industry, only exceeded by money center banks (the really big ones), non-bank financial services, regional banks, and entertainment software. Look at “pre-tax, pre-stock compensation operating margin” numbers—before paying taxes or large stock grants. From that view, tobacco is at the top at 44.7%. And second highest? Railroads with their 42.4%.
If you look at the data only from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, employee injuries and fatalities have been falling since at least 2000.
Fatalities and injuries of on-duty railroad employees.
Bureau of Transportation Statistics
In large part because the companies keep cutting back staff. In October 2000, there were 220,200 railroad transportation workers. By October 2022, the number was 142,300. Over the same period, the number of hauled containers and trailers went from 782,694 to 1,129,125, up 40%.
They could easily afford more workers. Better technology. Additional safety measures. And still make carloads of cash. But they don’t and clearly won’t.
The executive branch has to step in. So does Congress. When last they did, though, it was to side with the owners because of concern that a strike would shake supply chain logistics. Railroads transportation account for about 28% of freight transportation in the U.S., according to the Federal Railroad Administration.
However, there’s another factor as well. As an OpenSecrets.org analysis shows, the rail industry spend $653.5 million on government lobbying over the last 10 years, “with the biggest splurges occurring between 2008 and 2012 where the industry lobbied an act aiming to enforce antitrust laws on the freight railroad industry.” The lobbying expenses in 2022 were only $24.6 million, the lowest annual amount, adjusted for inflation, in more than two decades. (Check the link to see the article for many more details.)
Profits and spending on political leverage—money is the key and people, whether employees or citizens who are in the wrong place at the wrong time, are eventually sacrificial.
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