This week has ended in different colors for European and US markets. US stocks ended in the red: DJIA, S&P 500, NASDAQ, and VIX closed the week with decreasing rates of 0.32%, 0.37%, 0.68%, and 6.62%. Meanwhile, European markets concluded the week with rising rates: STOXX600, DAX, FTSE, and CAC with 0.53%, 0.41%, 0.19%, and 1.34% gains respectively.

At the beginning of this year, the agenda of the finance world was focused on the turbulent days of the bank crisis. And lately, the waters calmed. From those discussed two big banks: Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic, Silicon Valley Bank was acquired by First Citizens Bank after the crisis however currently the management team has also decided on the future of the investment banking division of the bank and the agreement will be to a hedge fund, Baupost Group. Currently, the buyers will pay $55 million in cash plus they will also pay $26 million of debt from SVB. Also, they will undertake deferred banker compensation assets but they will allow SVB Financial Group to hold 5% of the investment bank's equity. 

For the First Republic, the situation became clearer during May 2023 and the acquisition was finally made by JP Morgan this has cost them $173 billion for loans and $30 billion in securities along with $92 billion in deposits.

Consequently, all these steps were conducted after the US government made statements about the collapses. Also, as Jamie Dimon, CEO and Chairman of JPMorgan Chase stated “Our government invited us and others to step up, and we did”.

Flow Traders Investment Competition Update 

We have entered the last three weeks of the competition which means that the top three of the competition will not be revealed anymore until the End of the Year BBQ on July 13th! This means we can only update you on the rest. The biggest risers of the competition were Floryn Traders and Brut Investments, rising 11 and 10 places respectively. The biggest loss of the week was for Hercules, losing 8 places, making it back into the right column again. Even though they did not drop 8 places, the most painful loss of the week might even be for Batavia Vrouwen. They took over the last place from Audacity again.