The stock market was having a generally negative day on Tuesday, with all three major market indexes down by approximately 1% as of 12:30 p.m. ET. However, many bank stocks were being hit especially hard, especially in the regional banking space. Truist Financial (NYSE: TFC) and regional lender KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) were down by more than 3% and large regional bank U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB) was lower by about 2%. All three were down by more than 5% earlier in the trading day, and dozens of other prominent bank stocks were seeing similar declines.

First, there is no company-specific news causing the stock price action at these, or most other banks.

Instead, the pressure we're seeing on bank stocks today is due to several ratings actions taken by ratings agency Moody's on midsize United States banks. The agency downgraded the credit ratings and/or changed outlooks of more than a dozen financial institutions and placed five others under review for potential downgrades.

Continue reading

Source Fool.com