In a little over a month, the risk of the 30 most systemically important global banks has jumped an impressive 45%. At 235bps, the FSB30 stands just shy of the peak levels that were seen in the initial March 2009 crisis moment - though remains below Q4 2011 peak crisis levels. Perhaps, despite all the protestations of 'zee stabilitee', self-sustaining record-profit-margin-driven recovery, and Chinese soft-landing, the vicious circles of austerity in Europe (and perhaps the US) and financials squandering their newly-found liquidity (and certainly not capital) is becoming too large to ignore?
What is intriguing is how absolutely end-of-the-world the situation felt heading into Q1 2009 and yet - with banks' risk considerably higher now, we have become so much more 'used' to this state of chaos that our anchoring bias says - all is well?
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Chart: Capital Context