Making sense of the markets this week: March 19, 2023 [Video]

Photo by Mariia Shalabaieva on Unsplash

Kyle Prevost, editor of Million Dollar Journey and founder of the Canadian Financial Summit, shares financial headlines and offers context for Canadian investors.

Why are banks suddenly folding?

The big news of the week was, of course, that the 12th biggest bank in the U.S.A.—Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)—essentially went bankrupt. The final details are still being worked out, but the U.K. branch of SVB has been sold off to HSBC. And in Canada, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) has taken permanent control of SVB’s Canadian assets.

This is a fairly nuanced story that can lead you down a rabbit hole. To really dive in, I recommend this quick refresher on monetary policy.

The best explanation of what happened to SVB I could find was on Derek Thompson’s Plain English podcast. We’ll do our best to quickly summarize the bank collapse here, in order to better understand the broader systemic issues you may need to be …