Bank stocks continue to fall following First Republic demise

By KEN SWEET
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Regulators have barely written the epitaph for First Repbulic Bank, but investors on Wall Street have already moved onto speculating which bank might be the next to fail. Bank stocks fell sharply Tuesday, led downward by smaller banks with heavy exposure to uninsured deposits and commercial banks like Western Alliance Bank, PacWest Bancorp, Comerica and Zions Bank. Shares of Western Alliance were down 17% in afternoon trading and PacWest dropped 25%, with trading of both stocks halted briefly due to high volatility. The ongoing concern among investors and regulators is that banks such as PacWest have large amounts of uninsured deposits _ those above $250,000.