Tech beats banks.

Asian equities face declines after a tech-driven rally on Wall Street failed to ease the malaise hanging over the banking sector. Stock futures pointed to declines in Hong Kong, while those for Japan were little changed. US traders piled into top tech companies to push the Nasdaq 100 close to the threshold of a bull market. But banking stocks missed out on the rally, with a gauge of US financial heavyweights sinking to the lowest since November 2020 — even after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told lawmakers the US would be prepared for further steps to protect deposits if needed. Short-dated Treasuries saw outsized moves for an 11th straight day.

Borrowing backstop.

Banks borrowed a combined $164.8 billion from two Federal Reserve backstop facilities in the week ended March 15, in a sign of escalated funding strains in the aftermath of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure. Federal Reserve data showed a record $152.85 billion was borrowed from the discount window, the traditional liquidity backstop for banks, in the week ended March 15 — way up from $4.58 billion the previous week. And a further $11.9 billion was borrowed from the Fed’s new emergency backstop fund, launched Sunday. The credit highlights a banking system that is still fragile and dealing with deposit migration in the wake of the failures of SVB and Signature Bank. Elsewhere, the biggest US banks pledged $30 billion of deposits to rescue First Republic; and SVB is still hunting for a buyer.

Banking rout.

Stocks in Asia are poised to follow the sharpest decline in US equities in two weeks after a rout in bank shares picked up steam on concerns trouble in the sector could portend broader dangers. Treasuries rallied. Equity futures for Australia, Japan and Hong Kong all pointed to drops of more than 1%. The S&P 500 on Thursday fell to the lowest since Jan. 19, with financial companies in the index plunging. Banks came under fire after the collapse of crypto-friendly Silvergate Capital, amid growing scrutiny in Washington. That accelerated a selloff in Bitcoin, which fell for a fourth straight day to around $20,000.

News you can use.

 Photos: Getty Images

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