Markets: News  

On this quadruple witching options expiration day, investors had a risk-off mentality due to ongoing pressure in the banking sector. Yesterday's pleasing finish was largely a relief rally following news that First Republic Bank (FRC ) had received cash infusions from 11 big banks totaling $30 billion. The relief from that news was short lived and investors sold FRC again today after it provided a cash position update and suspended its dividend.Market participants were also reacting to reports that banks borrowed $11.9 billion from the Bank Term Funding Program and a record $153 billion from the Fed's discount window for the week ending March 15, exceeding anything during the financial crisis.That understanding renewed investors' worries about the health of the banking industry, leading to fairly indiscriminate selling in bank stocks. The SPDR S&P Bank ETF (KBE) fell 5.6% and the SPDR S&P Regional Bank ETF (KRE) fell 6.0%. Even banks that are viewed as potentially benefiting from the fallout at smaller banks, like JPMorgan (JPM 125.81, -4.94, -3.8%), suffered decent losses today. There was some underlying strength today, specifically in the mega cap space, as investors flocked to names that are viewed as being distant from the banking sector fallout, having strong balance sheets and being more resilient in an economic slowdown. Microsoft (MSFT 279.43, +3.23, +1.2%), Alphabet (GOOG 102.46, +1.39, +1.4%), and NVIDIA (NVDA 257.25, +1.84, +0.7%) were notable beneficiaries in that regard. NVDA was upgraded to Overweight from Equal Weight at Morgan Stanley today. Selling efforts were otherwise broad in nature. While the Vanguard Mega Cap Growth ETF (MGK) slipped just 0.3%, the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP) fell 1.7% and the market-cap weighted S&P 500 fell 1.1%. The S&P 500 sliced through its 200-day moving average (3,937) in the morning trade, sliding to 3,901 at its worst levels of the session before seeing a small bounce on a day that featured extremely heavy volume at the NYSE and Nasdaq. All 11 S&P 500 sectors logged a loss today with information technology (-0.1%) and communication services (-0.5%) sitting atop the leaderboard. Meanwhile, the financial sector (-3.3%) suffered the steepest decline, along with real estate (-2.3%) and industrials (-1.6%). Nasdaq Composite: +11.1% YTDS&P 500: +2.0% YTDS&P Midcap 400: -2.3% YTDRussell 2000: -2.0% YTDDow Jones Industrial Average: -3.9% YTDReviewing today's economic data:Total industrial production was unchanged month-over-month in February (Briefing.com consensus +0.5%) following an upwardly revised revised 0.3% increase (from 0.0%) in January. The capacity utilization rate held steady at 78.0% (Briefing.com consensus 78.5%) following a downward revision to 78.0% (from 78.3%) for January.The key takeaway from the report is that industrial production activity is softening, evidenced both by the year-over-year decline in total production and a capacity utilization rate that is near its lowest level since September 2021.Leading Indicators fell 0.3% in February (Briefing.com consensus -0.4%) following a 0.3% decline in January.The preliminary University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index for March dropped to 63.4 (Briefing.com consensus 67.2) from 67.0 in February. In the same period a year ago, the index stood at 59.4. Note: Roughly 85% of responses had been recorded prior to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank.The key takeaway from the report is the moderation in inflation expectations, which will please the Fed somewhat, although year-ahead inflation expectations still remain well above the 2.3-3.0% range seen in the two years prior to the pandemic.Looking ahead to Monday, there is no U.S. economic data of note.