Western Alliance (WAL) lost $6 billion in deposits amid the chaos that roiled the banking world in the first quarter. Profits at the Phoenix-based lender dropped 41% from a year earlier.

And yet its stock rose 24% the day after announcing those results.

Investors have been looking for any signs that the crisis that saw three US banks fail in a matter of days back in early March is over. They're particularly keen for signals from the regional banks most vulnerable to the panic that cascaded through the financial system in the weeks that followed.

Reports over the past week from more than 15 regional lenders offered plenty of those signs, as multiple executives said the deposit outflows they saw in March had since stabilized or even reversed.

Horizon Investments head of portfolio strategy Zach Hill called the earnings results this past week "better than feared."

The banking crisis "does feel like it's largely contained," added Quant Insight head of analytics Huw Roberts.

Wedbush analyst David Chiaverini told Yahoo Finance the theme dominating this earnings season so far is "less than feared."

At Western Alliance, deposits rose by $2 billion in the first two weeks of April.

"The waters are now calmer," Western Alliance CEO Ken Vecchione told analysts this week.

This doesn’t mean, however, that all is fine for the many mid-sized banks that lack the power or diversity of industry giants such as JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC).

Many of these smaller institutions said they now expect to earn less on their loans and pay more for their deposits, thus lowering expectations of revenue and profits in the future. Some also said they expect stricter federal banking regulations that could force them to raise more capital.

On Friday Moody's reinforced this challenging outlook by downgrading ratings for 11 regional lenders, including a two-notch cut for Western Alliance, citing "a deterioration in the operating environment and funding conditions for US banks."