The White House is downplaying the need to curb short-selling of banks even as it insists President Joe Biden hasn’t ruled out any options to ensure the stability of the banking system.
(Bloomberg) — The White House is downplaying the need to curb short-selling of banks even as it insists President Joe Biden hasn’t ruled out any options to ensure the stability of the banking system.
“The information that we have at this point is that the situation remains under control,” Heather Boushey, a member of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, told Bloomberg Television on Friday. “Certainly the FDIC and Treasury are watching these things very closely.”
Regulators last weekend brokered a deal for JPMorgan Chase & Co. to purchase First Republic Bank, following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. Shares of other regional banks have been under pressure. The KBW Regional Banking Index has fallen 31% on the year, fueled by concerns at lenders like PacWest Bancorp.
However, PacWest led a rebound across US regional banking stocks on Friday, hinting that selling pressures had gone too far.
“We’ve been able to see stability come back into that system and we’ve seen deposit flows, again, stabilize. So I think there are indications that we are in a better place certainly and we continue to watch the situation as it unfolds,” Boushey said.
“The president is certainly looking at the options on the table. but you know at this point, they have things under control,” she added.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre referred questions on short selling to the Securities and Exchange Commission. “I can say the administration is going to closely monitor the market developments, including the short selling pressures on healthy banks,” she said Thursday.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler in a statement Thursday said “the SEC is particularly focused on identifying and prosecuting any form of misconduct that might threaten investors, capital formation, or the markets more broadly.”
Anne-Marie Kelley, a former longtime senior SEC official and adviser to multiple chairs, and now a partner at lobbying firm Mercury Strategies, urged caution over a ban.
“Prior experience with a short sale ban in 2008 showed it was counterproductive, fueled panic, and actually undermined confidence in the financial sector, so we need to proceed extraordinarily cautiously and judiciously in order not to worsen problems in the banking sector,” Kelley said.
The White House has kept its public focus on another potential calamity: the standoff over the debt ceiling. The Treasury Department has warned it is poised to run out of money to meet its obligations as soon as June 1.
Biden will host Congressional leaders for talks on Tuesday. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is seeking spending cuts in exchange for raising the limit; Biden and Democrats have said the limit shouldn’t be held hostage in negotiations.
“The president has been focused on the fact that we need a clean debt-ceiling increase and we should leave the conversations about what future spending is to the conversations around the budget and appropriations process,” Boushey said.
(Updates to add additional comments in paragraphs 8-10)
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