SILICON Valley Bank (SVB), the 16th-largest lender in America, with about $200 billion in assets (roughly P11 trillion) has been shuttered and placed in receivership under the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC). Note that the Philippines' largest universal bank has assets of roughly P3.7 trillion. The CNN headline underscored the collapse of SVB in a 48-hour timeframe. On March 8, SVB announced it had sold a bunch of securities at a loss (of around $1.8 billion), and it would sell new shares of $2.25 billion to plug a hole in its balance sheet. That triggered a panic among venture capital firms (the bank's main clientele) to withdraw money from the bank. The bank's stock started its deep dive the following day Thursday. By Friday morning, trading in SVB shares was halted. On the same day, California regulators intervened and shut the bank down.

As The Economist reported, however, the SVB collapse was not really a 48-hour thing. It was 'gradually, then suddenly.' Its financial position deteriorated over several years. But the sudden failure occurred in a two-day time frame.