SVB collapse LIVE: Dow Futures dive over 500 points

About a dozen charter schools in Massachusetts were believed to have used Silicon Valley Bank, according to a report by the Boston Globe.

Among those is the Excel Academy Charter Schools in East Boston and Chelsea, where Chief Executive Owen Stearns said his school had several loans outstanding and kept millions of dollars on deposit with the now-failed bank.

Banking giant Goldman Sachs bought $21.4 billion of debt from Silicon Valley Bank on Tuesday, which the failed lender booked at a loss of $1.8 million.

That loss was the reason the technology-focused bank attempted a $2.25 billion stock sale last week using Goldman Sachs as an advisor.

But their efforts failed as depositors quickly withdrew their funds, and investors worried SVB would have needed even more capital.

SVB reports that the portfolio Goldman Sachs bought Tuesday comprises mainly US Treasuries and had a book value of $23.97 billion.

The transaction was carried out at 'negotiated prices,' the failed bank announced, and netted Goldman Sachs $21.45 billion in proceeds.

But Andrew Ross Sorokin of the New York Times Dealbook says it is likely to make more than $100 million off the deal.

Assets held by America's banks are worth a staggering $2 trillion less than stated in their accounts because of 'unrealized losses' like those which triggered the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, a study suggests.

And a run on the banks would leave customers at nearly 200 institutions facing losses of up to $300 billion, according to the paper by leading finance academics.

The paper said the value of assets across the U.S. banking system is '$2 trillion lower than suggested by their book value'. Those assets include Treasury bonds whose value has decreased significantly across the past 12 months because of an aggressive campaign of interest hikes by the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve is facing stinging criticism for missing what observers say were clear signs that Silicon Valley Bank was at high risk of collapsing into the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

Critics point to many red flags surrounding the bank, including its rapid growth since the pandemic, its unusually high level of uninsured deposits and its many investments in long-term government bonds and mortgage-backed securities, which tumbled in value as interest rates rose.

'It's inexplicable how the Federal Reserve supervisors could not see this clear threat to the safety and soundness of banks and to financial stability,' said Dennis Kelleher, chief executive of Better Markets, an advocacy group.

Embattled banks SVB, Signature Bank and Credit Suisse have shelled out 1.2million to Democratic candidates over the past three election cycles, fundraising data has revealed - while giving less than $750,000 to Republicans over the same period.

The data is laid bare in a publicly available outline of the donations done up by government transparency group OpenSecrets - and shows that all three big banks spent big to ensure their preferred candidates took office.

Beginning in 2016, the banks doled out tens of thousands to various successful Senate campaigns - including those of Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Joe Manchin and Montana's Jon Tester. 

Credit Suisse shares nosedived more than 20 percent to a new record low this morning, sending jitters across the Atlantic as US banks dropped in pre-market.

Shares fell below two Swiss francs for the first time this morning, trading as low as 1.71CHF. The crash ignited a broader sell-off in European banks already wounded after last week's collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

The Big Four trillion-dollar US banks suffered in premarket after yesterday's rally. Wells Fargo slid 4.8 percent, Citigroup dropped 4.6 percent, Bank of America was down 3 percent and JP Morgan saw a 2.7 percent dip.