The ten foreign stocks that flew in March and the ten to be forgotten

March was a month of strong emotions for investors on the US Stock Exchange. Since the fateful March 10th, the date of the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the markets experienced alternating days of anguish and relief, as the consequences of the biggest crisis of confidence in the financial system since 2008 began to emerge.

It’s only been in this last week that the dust seems to have finally settled on Wall Streetthanks to a set of events that started with the help of FIDC (the Credit Guarantee Fund of USA) to depositors of failed bankswent through the emergency lines of credit created by the Federal Reserve and culminated in a movement of still further strengthening of the big banks (the famous club of ‘too big to fail’ institutions).

At the end of all the stress, the three main indices of New York achieved an improbable positive result in the last month of the quarter. O Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) gained 1.63% in the month, S&P 500 (SPX) achieved 2.85% in gains, while the Nasdaq Composite (US100) shot up a whopping 8.65%.

In the case of Nasdaq, this is the best performance for the first quarter since 2020.

Winners of the month: All sunny for Big Techs, with Fed ‘pivot’ on radar

The great positive highlight of March was undoubtedly the technology sector. The actions of Big Techs benefited from the sudden shift to the US interest rate outlook, with market share even pricing in some cuts in the policy rate at the end of 2023 — a fact discarded by the Federal Reserve.

In any case, the impression that remains is that the directors of the North American Central Bank were frightened by what they saw in the crisis of the regional banks, so that a credit crunch (scarcity of credit) may have become an unavoidable criterion for the authority’s next decisions.

Within the S&P 500, of the ten companies that gained the most in March, eight of them operate strictly in the technology sector. Also appearing on the list is First Solar Inc. and Insulet Corp, in the energy and healthcare sector.

*Source FactSet.

Losers in March: Banks get hurt

It couldn’t be otherwise. the collapse of SVB and the Signature Bank paved the way for a crisis of confidence that gripped the entire US banking sector, fueling a voracious aversion to risk that hit the stock values ​​of several medium-sized banks.

The main negative highlight was due to the First Republic Bank (FRC), which lost 90% of its market capitalization in March.

The regional bank was on the verge of declaring insolvency, but was rescued by a US$ 30 billion ‘kitty’ from US banking giants, such as Bank of America, Goldman Sachs It is JP Morgan. The situation, however, remains critical for the institution.

Who entered the list of worst performers was the independent broker charles swab, considered the main influence for XP Inc. Bleeding in the banking system made the company have the worst month since 1987.

*Source FactSet.