Federal Reserve tells banks to not reveal results of 'stress test'

Federal Reserve tells banks to not reveal results of 'stress test'

rawstory.com

19 of the nation's largest banks have been told by the U.S. Federal Reserve to keep quiet on the results of economic 'stress tests' that regulators are conducting to judge the banks' financial preparedness.

The Fed is trying to guarantee that the test's results (which determine if the government will assist banks with necessary capital) don’t leak during conference calls scheduled for later in April, when first quarter's earnings are usually announced. No such guarantee can be made, however, and if information on which banks didn't pass the test is leaked, stock prices could suffer accordingly. The Federal Reserve plans on releasing the results in a few weeks.

Paul Miller, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets, told Bloomberg reporters, "If you allow banks to talk about it, people are just going to assume that the ones that don’t comment about it failed."

Currently, the 19 largest U.S. banks have enough capital to be considered well capitalized. But in the event of a 'more adverse scenario,' as the Reserve's press release terms it, the government wants to ensure that the banks have enough capital to weather any long-term recession. For the past few months, federal bank supervisors have been conducting a capital assessment for each bank. The basis of the capital assessment is to "determine whether the institution has a sufficient capital buffer necessary to ensure each institution has the amount and quality of capital necessary to perform their vital role in the economy," according to the Reserve. The Capital Assistance Program will be the source of any needed capital for banks that don't pass their capital assessment.

A progress report on the Capital Assistance Program was received in the White House by President Obama yesterday. Geithner, Ben Bernanke, and Sheila Bair, Chairman of the FDIC, were all in attendance, along with the rest of Obama's economic team. The full Bloomberg article can be found here.

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This is obviously a cover up. They want to make it so we don't know how the banks are doing so the public feels a false glimmer of confidence with Barack Obama so their real condition is a lot less than they would have us believe. We should end the federal reserve. All of this talk of transparency during the election was a scam. Can we get rid of the fed already?

rawstory.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

True, true, true.

I love this whole new, TRANSPARACY. Don't you?

I'd much rather have cold hard facts, then a lie, or nothing at all.

Now, i'm not sure yet, but I figure if we find where Andrew Jackson was buried, dig him up, bury him in a Pet Cemetary, then try to settle him down from mutilating people. We may have a fighting chance against the Federal Reserve Bank.

Otherwise, we are all hoping for his reincarnation.

Actually, I'm kind of surprised that the 'stress tests' themselves weren't geared to make the results show whatever they wanted to 'show'.

These people have been hiding from us so long, they can't face reality publicly.

They've grown so accustomed to lying and hiding that they strain credulity every time they speak.

The Fed shows us her true colors ever time we see their lips move.

look at it this way the Fed and Obama want the banks to hold off on the bad news until the false profit reports come out at the end of this month. That way the banks get to collect "Profits" on the bailout money they got.

May 4th-7th the reports on the stress tests will be released and they will say that most banks have enough money unless the economy gets worse. which will cause more panic in the markets wiping out the 1st quarter "profits" the banks got and then we will see the Bank CEO's going before congress saying since your stress test caused panic in the markets and our shares are trading at $.02 a share now we need you to give us more money.

Now this is all very hypothetical but it is very much a reality since the fed said last week i think it was that most banks were doing ok on their tests but "some" banks will need more help.

[edit on 4/12/2009 by Mercenary2007]