Articles About Loans

The Federal Reserve’s second round of stress tests requires the 19 largest U.S. banks to examine their capital levels against a worst-possible-case scenario of another recession with the unemployment rate hovering above 8.9 percent. The banks were instructed to test how their loans, securities, earnings, and capital performed when compared with at least three possible […]

Eleven American banks that received money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) originated 13 percent more loans in December than they had the previous month. The Department of the Treasury released this information in its monthly survey of loans made by recipients of the $700 billion government bailout money. According to the Treasury Department, […]

Eleven of the 12 regional Federal Reserve banks showed signs of a stabilizing or improving economy during July and August, according to the Fed’s latest Beige Book report.  The Beige Book’s anecdotal evidence found that the nation’s worst recession in 70 years is coming to an end.  The Fed expects the economy to grow by […]

Investment banks are hunkering down to preserve capital, primarily because there are grave concerns about current property valuations, says Charles Krawitz, Senior Loan Sales Asset Manager, Fifth Third Bank, in an interview for The Alter Group podcasts on real estate.  Banks are reluctant to lend $10 million to a property that might be worth only […]

Toxic commercial real estate loans could create losses up to $100 billion for small and mid-size banks by the end of 2010 if the economy worsens.  According to a Wall Street Journal report – which applied the same criteria used by the federal government in its stress tests of 19 big banks — these institutions […]

$70 trillion dollars.  That’s all the money in the world, or to get technical, the subset of global savings known as fixed-income securities.  And it almost doubled from $36 trillion in just six years.  How did this happen? The Federal Reserve presided over the creation of what we have learned (the hard way) is a […]

Warren Buffett’s loyal followers are wondering what got into the Oracle of Omaha when he told CNBC  that this is “a great time to be in banking”, praised Wells Fargo’s massive earning power, and said that the government doesn’t need to provide capital to or nationalize banks. Although some critics dismissed Buffett’s statements as biased because […]