The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) has attracted a lot of interest and volume in recent days. Trading volume has soared to record levels as traders and investors have quickly decided to "sell first and ask questions later" on the heels of the news about SVB Financial Group (SIVB) , Signature Bank (SI) and First Republic Bank (FRC) .
With regional/community banks representing something like 50% of U.S. industrial lending and about 60% of U.S. residential mortgage lending we should all be interested. Let's review the condition of the charts and indicators to see what might be the "next shoe to drop."
In this daily bar chart of KRE, below, I can see that the ETF found buying interest (a.k.a. "support") in the $56 area a number of times from June and July and then again in December. However, this area was broken in recent days as the stock plunged.
Trading volume soared ten-fold as nearly everyone wanted to get out. The slopes of the 50-day and 200-day moving average lines were already negative but they weakened further.
The On-Balance-Volume (OBV) line dove to a new low for the move down and reinforced the observation of aggressive selling. The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) oscillator turned bearish in early March when it moved below the zero line.



