Stress-Tested Banks Need Just $100B

(NEWSER) - Economists think the US unemployment rate will stay above 9% through 2010, the Wall Street Journal survey finds. Accordingly, those in the know believe the Federal Reserve will hold interest rates down at least through spring. “For real people, there is no recovery until the unemployment rate stabilizes,” one economist said. “If the Fed starts raising rates in the face of continued job losses, it could abort a recovery.” More»

But Fed chief is encouraged by bank response

(NEWSER) - Big banks' response to "stress tests" has been encouraging but they will need to watch out for risks not covered by the tests, Ben Bernanke warned regulators yesterday. The Fed chief—signaling that investment giants like Goldman Sachs can expect tighter scrutiny—said banks should self-test for potentially disastrous "operational, liquidity and reputational risks," Bloomberg reports. Bernanke warned that the financial situation remained fragile, and that the government was prepared to inject more capital to shore up the system. More»

(NEWSER) - It's official: The stress-test results are out, and the feds say 10 of the nation's 19 biggest banks need to raise a total of $75 billion in capital to weather a future downturn, the Wall Street Journal reports. The banks, five of which are regional, are:

• Bank of America: $33.9 billion
• Wells Fargo: $13.7 billion
• GMAC LLC: $11.5 billion
• Citigroup: $5.5 billion
• Regions Financial Corp (Birmingham): $2.5 billion
• SunTrust Banks (Atlanta): $2.2 billion

Pandit out at Citi?

(NEWSER) - The nation's biggest banks will start to learn how they did on the dreaded stress test today, reports the New York Times. Though the public won’t learn the results until May 4, analysts are predicting that many of the 19 banks will have to raise large amounts of new capital to survive a prolonged recession. Bank of America and Citigroup are thought to be in especially dire straights. More»

Stress test an Obama weapon

(NEWSER) - Banks are proving so reluctant to part with their so-called “toxic assets” that the Obama administration may have to strong-arm them into doing so, Time reports. Banks are protesting that the prices being offered—about $70 per $100 bond by the magazine’s calculations—are too low. That’s part of the reason Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner decided to make the “stress tests” public, officials say. More»