Shares of banks and other financial institutions fell slightly after a robust week for global stock and bond markets.
Gains for equity and bond portfolios and the prospect of rising loan demand sparked a rally in financial sector midweek.
"Stocks are overbought by almost any metric you could come up with," said Quincy Krosby, chief global strategist at brokerage LPL Financial.
"The characteristics of a strong, powerful market is that it can continue to climb despite being overbought, and even bad news won't affect it," said Krosby, noting that even a stern warning from New York Fed President John Williams that rate cuts may not be on the cards failed to quell the stock-market rally.
Options contracts tied to more than $5 trillion worth of stocks, exchange-traded funds and indexes are set to expire on Friday as the latest Triple Witching expiration event coincided with the rebalancing of the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100.
A process to sell the venture-capital arm of bankrupt SVB Financial, the former parent of Silicon Valley Bank, has fallen flat and creditors are now gearing up for a potential takeover of the business.
Bids from Anthony Scaramucci's SkyBridge Capital and Atlas Merchant Capital, and San Francisco investment firm Vector Capital failed to pan out.
Two units of Blackstone, investment firm Rialto Capital, the Canada Pension Fund Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp formed a partnership to manage mortgage portfolios formerly owned by failed bank Signature.
Shares of New York Mortgage Trust shares were down 11% after the company declared a 20-cent quarterly dividend, down from a previous quarterly payout of 30 cents.
Write to Rob Curran at rob.curran@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
12-15-23 1748ET
