NEW YORK, February 28, 2026, 12:04 EST — Market shut down for the day.
Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) shares closed at $49.83 on Friday, falling 4.72%. The stock hit a low of $49.32 during the session. Turnover reached roughly 77.7 million shares, breaking a two-day winning streak.
Banks and finance stocks took a beating after new warning signs flared in private credit—lending that operates outside the regular banking system. News of Market Financial Solutions’ collapse, a U.K. mortgage lender, sent shockwaves through Wall Street, slicing 4% off the S&P 500 bank index for the day, according to Reuters. “We’re starting to continue to see these types of things pop up, which is definitely a problem,” Joe Saluzzi, Themis Trading’s co-head of equity trading, told Reuters. Reuters
This whole situation gets complicated by the fact that banks are still embedded in private-credit pipelines, whether or not they’re actually underwriting the loans themselves. According to Moody’s, U.S. banks had close to $300 billion in loans out to private-credit firms as of June 2025, Reuters noted. That’s got investors digging into what happens to those connections if defaults start to tick up. “It’s not clear that things have fundamentally changed,” said Christian Hoffmann, head of fixed income at Thornburg Investment Management. Reuters
AI jitters seeped into trading. Block is slashing over 4,000 roles as it pushes to weave artificial intelligence throughout the company, CEO Jack Dorsey declaring, “Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company.” His candor stoked concern about layoffs and their knock-on effects for consumer demand and credit quality. Reuters
Bank stocks took a hit as rates went south. The S&P 500 dropped 0.43% Friday, with investors snapping up Treasuries. That pushed the 10-year yield down to 3.96%, and the 2-year slid to 3.385%, Reuters reported. When yields fall, banks feel it in their net interest margins—the gap between loan earnings and the cost of deposits.
Among other big banks, JPMorgan Chase ended down 1.90%. Wells Fargo shed 5.62%, with Citigroup losing 5.16%. Trading Economics reported the U.S. bank index finishing roughly 4.9% lower for the day.
U.S. markets will be closed Saturday, leaving the focus on next week’s data releases. The ISM manufacturing index hits at 10:00 a.m. ET Monday. Wednesday has both the ADP private payrolls and the ISM services report lined up. Then, the government’s February jobs numbers are due Friday.
Those data drops land directly in the path of rate bets. The Federal Reserve is on deck for its March 17-18 meeting, likely to keep its benchmark rate locked between 3.50% and 3.75%. Investors are picking apart every shred of labor-market info to handicap both the timing and the pace of cuts.
Friday’s drop could easily spill over, not just a blip. Should private-credit losses deepen or additional lenders reveal setbacks, banks might end up dealing with pricier funding and a jump in charge-offs, recession or not.
If data keeps quiet and fresh credit jolts stay off the radar, that could snuff out contagion chatter and pull cash back toward the sector. But Friday told a different story—investors dumped first, sorted the details after.
Bank of America’s next big signals come with Monday’s ISM release on March 2, followed by the payrolls numbers on March 6. Both are key for gauging where yields, loan demand, and risk appetite might shift in the week ahead.
