Stocks move higher ahead of close as banks, UBS-Credit Suisse deal weigh on markets

Yahoo Finance Live host Seana Smith examines regional bank stocks as banking uncertainty and UBS' proposed purchase of Credit Suisse weigh on the stock market ahead of Monday's closing bell.

Video transcript

SEANA SMITH: But first, let's start with the big story of the day. Once again, that is banks. Starting with the regional plays, and you can see a bit of a mixed picture here. Actually a number of some of these players trading to the upside today. The latest reports coming that Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan leading some of the talks with other big-bank CEOs about a new effort to stabilize First Republic.

Taking a look at First Republic. Shares were halted a couple of times today. Trading off just about 41%, so just off the lows of the session that the stock hit shortly after noon Eastern Time. Some concern there about what needs to happen in order to stabilize First Republic and exactly what that situation looks like.

You can see it's weighing on some of the other names within the sector, but a number of the regionals that have been under pressure for the last week and a half, two weeks or so are actually trading to the upside. You have Pacific West up just about 9% today. PNC up just about 2 and 1/2%. Comerica trading up more than 3% today. So a bit of a mixed picture, but certainly First Republic the underperformer there.

And then let's take a look at some of the bigger banks. I mentioned that deal over in Switzerland over the weekend. UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse. And when you take a look at the performance of those two names, obviously Credit Suisse under a tremendous amount of pressure today, but UBS is holding on to gains. You can see it, the larger gainer of this group of stocks here. UBS up just about 4% today.

So some reassurance in the market but still lots of questions about what exactly the future looks like for the banking sector and, more specifically, some of those regional plays.