Big Bank Stocks Versus Regional Bank Stocks: A Price Chart Analysis

The difference between the recent price performance of a major New York City banking institution and that of most regional banks is quite striking. JP Morgan is obviously benefitting from being huge and the name brand when it comes to the financial sector.

Following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, tremors shook the banking industry, and it remains a question of how much or whether firms can recover lost ground. That’s the attraction of examining how their stocks traded before and after. The monster run by Jamie Dimon looks good, everything else looks problematic.

The daily price chart for the benchmark Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund is here:

From the February high of $36.75 down to the March low of $30.25 and it’s now back to $33.59. So, it’s about halfway back to the pre-Silicon Valley Bank effect — and now above both the 50-day and the 200-day moving average.

Here’s how the JP Morgan daily price chart looks right now:

The March sell-off during the concern over the Silicon Valley Bank failure is obvious: the slippage from the February high 0f $142 to the March low of $122 represents a quick 14% drop. JP Morgan stabilized and gapped back up to the $142 level in early May.

In late June and early July, the big bank broke above that resistance level: you can see how the red dotted line connecting the February high with the May high is taken out by mid-summer buying. Investors like this particular bank stock.

Compare the above to the Bank of America
BAC
daily price chart:

The other monster New York City bank has nowhere near the buying strength seen in the JP Morgan chart. Bank of America has barely recovered from the dramatic March selling: the stock hit $26 in later March and now goes for $28.53. It’s not even halfway back to the early February high of $36.50.

For whatever reason, it’s the same basic pattern with the regional banks. Take a look at the benchmark S&P SPDR Regional Banking ETF daily price chart:

From an early February high of $64 to an early May low of $34 represents a loss of 47% in a short period of time. The recovery of the ETF of back up to $41.47 is okay, but compare it to the JP Morgan recover: it’s not even close.

Here’s the daily price chart of a well-known regional bank, Zion Bancorp
TBBK
:

The Salt Lake City-based regional took quite a hit during the SVB
VB
debacle: from the February high of near $54 all the way down to $18 in early May. It’s recovered since then and now trades for $28.98 but it’s got a long way to go for a new high.

Most of the regional bank stocks have the same kind of look: a bounce off of the lows but nothing to write home about.