First Republic Bank continues its fall on Wall Street

(New York) Shares of U.S. regional bank First Republic continued to slide to a low on Wednesday, suffering a series of NASDAQ trading halts.

The title, which has already lost almost half of its value on Tuesday, lost another 18% Wednesday morning around 11:20 a.m. (Eastern time) to be worth only 6.59 dollars. The stock has been suspended from trading five times.

It is down more than 95% compared to the start of the year.

The bank is particularly under pressure after revealing on Monday evening that its customers withdrew more than 100 billion in deposits in the first quarter.

But it has been in the spotlight since mid-March, when authorities and other financial institutions came to its rescue to prevent it from facing the same fate as Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, namely bankruptcy.

First Republic assured that withdrawals from its customers had stabilized since the end of March, that it planned to cut its expenses by laying off up to a quarter of its workforce and that it would limit the sums it lends.

According to Bloomberg, the bank is looking to sell $100 billion worth of assets like mortgages and long-term securities.

Asked by AFP about the ongoing discussions, the bank had not yet responded.

As for the federal agency FDIC, which insures banks’ deposits, it refrained from commenting: the agency “ does not comment on institutions that are open and functioning ”, she indicated to the AFP.