Why Western Alliance, PacWest, First Horizon And Regional Bank Stocks Are Rebounding Premarket Friday

Shares of beaten-down regional banking stocks were surging higher in premarket trading.

Stocks rebounded following a report by Bloomberg that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation may exempt smaller banks with assets below $10 billion from contributing to its Deposit Insurance Fund.

Some lenders with about $50 billion in assets could spread out the payments over two years, while the bulk of the bill would be footed by bigger lenders, the report said. The benign stance toward small lenders could raise hopes that the government will handhold the regional banks if the situation warrants. Analysts and experts have been calling for a systemwide deposit guarantee regime ever since more banks have disclosed issues with liquidity.

According to Benzinga Pro data, in premarket trading:

• Western Alliance Bancorp. (NYSE: WAL) rose 12.64% to $20.50.
• PacWest Bancorp. (NASDAQ: PACW) climbed 13.56% to $3.6.
• First Horizon Corp. (NYSE: FHN) added 7.16% to $10.68.
• East West Bancorp. (NASDAQ: EWBC) moved up 6.69% to $44.16.
• KeyCorp. (NYSE: KEY) gained 6.49% to $9.51.
• Zions Bancorp (NASDAQ: ZION) surged up 7.28% to $21.38.

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