The collapse of Credit Suisse caused an earthquake in European stock markets

The aftershocks caused by the earthquake fall from grace Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) they don’t stop repeating themselves on this side of the ocean. And with rather worrying consequences. The fire was ignited this Wednesday after Credit Suisse admitted in its annual report that there were significant material weaknesses in the results it presented in 2021 and 2022. That is, it admitted that its accounting was not entirely accurate.

Moreover, she announced that her managers would not receive bonuses for the first time in 15 years. Within hours of admitting there were some problems, Saudi National Bank, the main shareholder of Credit Suisse Group With a 9.88% stake in the entity, he completely ruled out the possibility of increasing his investment in the Swiss bank and thereby providing greater financial assistance to resolve the entity’s damaged accounts: «The answer is absolutely no, for many reasons from the outside for the simplest reason, which is regulatory and statutory “, explained the president of the Saudi National Bank in an interview with Bloomberg. After being asked if the Arab entity was open to implementing new injections of funds, the Saudis were categorical: “We currently own 9.8% of the bank and if we exceed 10%, the new rules of the Arab regulator, the European regulator or the Swiss regulator will apply and we are not inclined to enter the new regulatory regime.”

And the earthquake moved directly to the floor. The Shares of Credit Suisse fell more than 29 percent on the Zurich Stock Exchange this Wednesday, extending last week’s decline to more than 39% and the accumulated decline so far this year to more than 40%.

This Wednesday, the European Bank again suffers from the contagion of the SVB disaster. After the losses recorded on Monday, the subjects of the Old Continent are once again facing red numbers on the stock exchanges. Of the main European banks, Société Générale fell by 9.83%; BNP Paribas, 8.74%; and ING (Netherlands), 8.24%. Germany’s Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank fell by 7.96% and 6.92%, respectively; while in the United Kingdom Barclays lost 6.44% and HSBC 3.95%. Italy’s Unicredit also lost 6.87%; and Intesa Sanpaolo, 5.94%.

Spain did not manage to escape either. The Madrid floor is being followed by a sharp decline of European banks, and the Ibex lost 3.9% in the middle of the morning, thus losing the level of 8,900 basis points.

The biggest decline was recorded by Banco Sabadell, which lost 9.17 percent. But BBVA also added a significant drop, with 7.79%; Bankinter, with 7.28%; or Santander, with 7.15%. For their part, Caixabank and Unicaja recorded losses of more than 6%.

Banks are not the only ones suffering the consequences. Inditex, for example, loses 5.45 percent. And this despite the fact that this Wednesday, during the presentation of the results, it announced that it made a profit of 4,130 million euros, which is 13.5 percent more than in the year before the pandemic, 2019.