Non-significant in life but significant in death: Spillover effects to euro area banks from the SVB fallout

Did Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) fallout spillover to the euro area banking sector? We find that euro area banks’ cumulative abnormal returns declined by about 10% on average after the collapse of SVB. Surprisingly, we also find that investors did not react to euro area banks sharing similar vulnerabilities as SVB, such as lower liquidity and less stable funding sources. Instead, they were more concerned about the possible negative repercussions on banks’ balance sheets coming from the pace of the current monetary policy tightening.