U.S. stocks opened lower Monday after the government took steps to support the banking system after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday sparked contagion fears. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA was down 0.7% soon after the opening bell, while the S&P 500 SPX fell 1% and the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite COMP shed 0.8%, according to FactSet data, at last check. The Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said in a joint statement Sunday that they are “taking decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in our banking system.” They said Silicon Valley Bank depositors will have access to “all of their money” starting Monday. Depositors at New York-based Signature Bank, a crypto-friendly institution closed by regulators on Sunday, also will be “made whole,” according to the joint statement, citing a “similar systemic risk exception. ”The Fed said Sunday that it created a Bank Term Funding Program to “help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors.”
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