Fear over credit quality in U.S. regional banks rippled through markets on Friday, dragging global financial stocks lower for a time before they regained their losses, and reviving memories of the crisis of confidence that shook sentiment just over two years ago.

The selloff hit Wall Street's main indexes as futures wavered, deepening investor anxiety that was already heightened by escalating U.S.-China trade tensions and renewed worries about the global economic outlook.

The banking sector's exposure to two recent U.S. auto bankruptcies has rekindled concerns about lending standards more than two years after Silicon Valley Bank's failure, when high interest rates drove paper losses on its bonds and sparked a rout of global bank stocks.

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank: What does it

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