

US stocks rose on Tuesday as investors bet that the risk of contagion following the closure of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank is limited.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 336.26 points, or 1.06%, at 32,155.40, snapping a five-day losing streak. The S&P 500 added 1.65% to close at 3,919.29. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 2.14% to end at 11,428.15.
Investors’ enthusiasm for buying bank shares waned slightly in the afternoon. But many still made gains, marking a turnaround from two sessions of deep selling as investors became increasingly confident that these names would not suffer the same fate as Silicon Valley and Signature. Regulators said Sunday they were drawing up a plan to freeze all depositors at the two banks.
The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) ended the session up 2%, regaining some ground after a 12% decline the previous day. Shares of First Republic Bank rose nearly 27% after closing down nearly 62% on Monday. KeyCorp shares rose nearly 7% in a relief bounce back from a 27% slide.
First Republic shares
Traders are looking ahead to what’s next for the banking sector in light of the latest turmoil.
The backstop announcement “changed the sentiment, or shifted the tide, to some extent,” said Charlie Ripley, vice president of portfolio management at Allianz Investment Management. “It starts with the immediate knee-jerk reaction, and then it takes some time to kind of dig into the details and understand the real risks and understand where the true exposures are.”
The rally extended beyond financials, with all 11 S&P 500 sectors rising in Tuesday’s session. Shares gave up some gains in the afternoon as investors reacted to news of a Russian fighter jet downing a US drone over the Black Sea.
Traders also focused on the latest US inflation data.
The consumer price index rose 0.4% in February from January, matching the consensus estimate of economists polled by Dow Jones. The annual increase of 6% was also in line with economists’ expectations. The so-called “core” CPI, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, rose slightly more than economists expected at 0.5% from the previous month, while the 5.5% year-on-year increase was in line with what they expected.
“It’s a relief rally, we’d call it, given the lack of any big surprises in the CPI and then just the lack of overnight surprises in the banking space,” said Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist at LPL Financial. “The market welcomes it.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misinterpreted the movement and closing level of the S&P 500.