In a stunning headline-making moment of clarity, it appears that all the major financials that the Fed monitors (except GMAC Ally) will survive a cataclysmic, Lehman-like moment based on their self-determined analytics of their deeply illiquid off-balance-sheet assets (and a comprehensive understanding of the co-dependence of all those assets). As Bloomberg notes,
- *TESTS ASSUME HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIOS FOR 9 QTRS ENDING 4Q 2014
- *FED SAYS 18 BANKS PROJECTED LOSSES WOULD BE $462B UNDER TEST
- *FED SEES 17 BANKS' TIER 1 COMMON RATIO ABOVE 5% IN WORST CASE
- *GMAC ALLY ONLY STRESS-TESTED BANK SEEN WITH TIER 1 COMMON BELOW 5%
- *TESTS SCENARIO ASSUMES EQUITY PRICES DROP MORE THAN 50%
- *TESTS SCENARIO ASSUMES HOUSING PRICES DECLINE MORE THAN 20%
Is it any wonder that Government Motors wanted to IPO its GMAC/Ally business recently - with a 1.5% stressed Tier 1 ratio.
[9]
And another summary table:
[10]
And in chart format:
[11]
and for fun - only $48.4bn total losses from trading and countperty
exposure in a Lehman-like stress event for JPM and Goldman...
[12]
PR From The Fed:
The nation's largest bank holding companies have continued to improve their ability to withstand an extremely adverse hypothetical economic scenario and are collectively in a much stronger capital position than before the financial crisis, according to the summary results of bank stress tests announced by the Federal Reserve on Thursday.
Reflecting the severity of the stress scenario--which includes a peak unemployment rate of 12.1 percent, a drop in equity prices of more than 50 percent, a decline in housing prices of more than 20 percent, and a sharp market shock for the largest trading firms--projected losses at the 18 bank holding companies would total $462 billion during the nine quarters of the hypothetical stress scenario. The aggregate tier 1 common capital ratio, which compares high-quality capital to risk-weighted assets, would fall from an actual 11.1 percent in the third quarter of 2012 to 7.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014 in the hypothetical stress scenario.
The Federal Reserve's stress scenario estimates are the outcome of deliberately stringent and conservative assessments under hypothetical, adverse economic conditions and the results are not forecasts or expected outcomes.
Despite the large hypothetical declines, the aggregate post-stress capital ratio exceeds the actual aggregate tier 1 common ratio for the 18 firms of approximately 5.6 percent at the end of 2008, prior to the government stress tests conducted in the midst of the financial crisis in early 2009. This is the third round of stress tests led by the Federal Reserve since the tests in 2009, but is the first year that the Federal Reserve has conducted stress tests pursuant to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and the Federal Reserve's implementing regulations.
"The stress tests are a tool to gauge the resiliency of the financial sector," Federal Reserve Governor Daniel K. Tarullo said. "Significant increases in both the quality and quantity of bank capital during the past four years help ensure that banks can continue to lend to consumers and businesses, even in times of economic difficulty."
Full PDF here:
DFAST_2013_results_20130307 [13] by [14]