What happened

Ally Financial (ALLY 0.41%) saw its stock price plummet 15.2% in March, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. The stock is currently trading at around $26 per share as of April 6, up about 7.2% year to date.

The major market indexes, on the other hand, all moved higher in March. The S&P 500 gained 3.5%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 1.9%, and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 3.5% for the month.

So what

The collapse of SVB Financial's Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in early March had a widespread effect throughout the banking industry. In the days that followed, bank stocks across the board saw their share prices decline on fears that there would be massive runs on deposits that would shutter more banks.

Federal regulators stepped in to ensure that banks needing liquidity help would get it, which seemed to stabilize things. The biggest concerns were over smaller regional banks, as these banks don't have to adhere to the same regulatory requirements and liquidity standards as large banks. Ally is an online bank with about $182 billion in assets as of Dec. 31, making it the 22nd-largest bank in the U.S. It has less than $250 billion in assets, so it is not subject to stress testing and liquidity requirements.

However, one key issue that brought down SVB and Signature was a high level of uninsured deposits. That is not the case with Ally, as only a small percentage of its assets are uninsured, about 10%. It also has excellent liquidity with a common equity tier 1 ratio of 9.3%, nearly double the regulatory minimum of 4.5%. It also increased its deposits by $3.8 billion to $137.7 billion in the fourth quarter and boosted its cash by $0.5 billion from the third quarter to $5.1 billion.

Now what

Ally doesn't really have any of the concerns that brought down SVB and Signature, but this is a tenuous time for banks, given the regulatory environment and macroeconomic conditions.

Many economists say that a recession is looming, which could impact lending, credit quality, provisions of credit losses, and earnings. Also, mid-sized and smaller banks could be subject to new regulations following the recent bank collapses. So it remains to be seen what short-term impact that has on banks.

The good news is Ally is a strong bank that is very cheap, with a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 5. But investors should be tuned in to Ally's first-quarter earnings report on April 19 for more insight into how it navigated a tumultuous quarter and its outlook.