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Battered shares of Credit Suisse lost more than one-quarter of their value Wednesday, hitting a record low after its biggest shareholder — the Saudi National Bank — told news outlets that it would not inject more money into the Swiss bank beset by problems long before the failure of two U.S. lenders.
The turmoil prompted an automatic pause in trading of Credit Suisse’s shares on the Swiss market and sent shares of other European banks plunging by as much as double digits. That fanned new fears about the health of financial institutions following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in the United States in recent days.
Credit Suisse stock dropped more than 27%, to about 1.6 Swiss francs ($1.73), in mid-afternoon trading on the SIX stock exchange Wednesday. That’s down more than 85% from February 2021. The shares have suffered a long, sustained decline: In 2007, they were trading at more than 80 francs each.
With concerns about the possibility of more hidden trouble in the banking system, investors were quick to sell bank stocks on bad news.
Other European banks took a battering as concerns spread about the sector: France’s Societe Generale SA dropped 12%, France’s BNP Paribas fell more than 10%, Germany’s Deutsche Bank was down 8% and Britain’s Barclays Bank was down nearly 8%. Shares in the two French banks also were briefly suspended.
