by Calculated Risk on 6/22/2012 09:20:00 PM

This is an unofficial list of Problem Banks compiled only from public sources. (And only US banks).

Here is the unofficial problem bank list for June 22, 2012. (table is sortable by assets, state, etc.)

Changes and comments from surferdude808:

Quiet week for the Unofficial Problem Bank List with three additions and one removal. The changes leave the list with 921 institutions with assets of $354.6 billion, up for the second consecutive week. A year ago, the list held 1,001 institutions with assets of $419.2 billion.

The Federal Reserve terminated the action against Paradise Bank, Boca Raton, FL ($288 million). Written Agreements were issued to Commercial Bank, Harrogate, TN ($801 million; and Mainstreet Bank, Ashland, MO ($59 million).

Another addition came through the Federal Reserve issuing a Prompt Corrective Action order against First Security Bank of Malta, Malta, MT ($39 million), with this action being unusual in its timing as it has not been preceded by a safety & soundness enforcement action.

Next week, we anticipate the FDIC will release its actions through May 2012, so it would not be surprising to see the list increase for three consecutive weeks.

Note: The FDIC's official problem bank list is comprised of banks with a CAMELS rating of 4 or 5, and the list is not made public. (CAMELS is the FDIC rating system, and stands for Capital adequacy, Asset quality, Management, Earnings, Liquidity and Sensitivity to market risk. The scale is from 1 to 5, with 1 being the strongest.)

As a substitute for the CAMELS ratings, surferdude808 is using publicly announced formal enforcement actions, and also media reports and company announcements that suggest to us an enforcement action is likely, to compile a list of possible problem banks in the public interest.

by Calculated Risk on 6/22/2012 05:31:00 PM

Note: The Case-Shiller report is for April (really an average of prices in February, March and April). This data is released with a significant lag, see: House Prices and Lagged Data

Zillow Forecast: Zillow Forecast: April Case-Shiller Composite-20 Expected to Show 1.9% Decline from One Year Ago

On Tuesday, June 26th, the Case-Shiller Composite Home Price Indices for April will be released. Zillow predicts that the 20-City Composite Home Price Index (non-seasonally adjusted [NSA]) will decline by 1.9 percent on a year-over-year basis, while the 10-City Composite Home Price Index (NSA) will decline by 2.4 percent on a year-over-year basis. The seasonally adjusted (SA) month-over-month change from March to April will be 0.5 percent for both the 20 and 10-City Composite Home Price Indices (SA). All forecasts are shown in the table below and are based on a model incorporating the previous data points of the Case-Shiller series and the April Zillow Home Value Index data, and national foreclosure re-sales.

April is the third consecutive month with monthly appreciation for the Case-Shiller indices, with April projected to be particularly strong. Buyers are experiencing many markets with extremely low inventory, which is propping up prices in the near term, paired with a decreasing share of foreclosure re-sales. The decreasing share of foreclosure re-sales, especially, will impact the Case-Shiller indices positively this month.

Despite the recent uptick in home prices, we do believe that 2012 will end on a lower level than 2011.

Zillow's forecasts for Case-Shiller have been pretty close.

One of the keys this year is to watch the year-over-year change in the various house price indexes. The composite 10 and 20 indexes declined 2.8% and 2.6% YoY respectively in March, after declining 3.6% and 3.5% in February. Zillow is forecasting a smaller year-over-year decline in April.

		Case Shiller Composite 10		Case Shiller Composite 20
		NSA	SA	NSA	SA
Case Shiller (year ago)	April 2011	151.78	154.81	138.43	141.27
Case-Shiller (last month)	March 2012	146.61	149.55	134.10	136.90
Zillow March Forecast	YoY	-2.4%	-2.4%	-1.9%	-1.9%
	MoM	1.1%	0.5%	1.2%	0.5%
Zillow Forecasts1		148.2	150.7	135.8	138.6
Current Post Bubble Low		146.61	149.29	134.10	136.57
Date of Post Bubble Low		March 2012	January 2012	March 2012	January 2012
1Estimate based on Year-over-year and Month-over-month Zillow forecasts

by Calculated Risk on 6/22/2012 02:18:00 PM

From the WSJ: European Leaders Push for €130 Billion to Help Growth

Italy, France, Spain and Germany agreed to push European leaders at a key summit next week to sign off on a €130 billion ($163 billion) euro plan aimed at increasing growth in Europe's beleaguered economies.

This was a small meeting of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François Hollande, Spanish Premier Mariano Rajoy, and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. This was preparation for the two day European summit in Brussels that starts next Thursday, June 28th.

From the NY Times: Euro Leaders Agree to Push for Stimulus Package

After a two-hour meeting here, the leaders of France, Germany, Spain and Italy also pledged to give a clearer, more comprehensive vision of the future, while acknowledging the serious crisis sweeping the Continent.

“The 130 billion euros is a strong signal,” French President Francois Hollande said at the news conference following the private meeting, and is part of “a road map that presupposes fiscal and banking union.”

by Calculated Risk on 6/22/2012 11:31:00 AM

More on Europe ...

From the WSJ: Spain to Make Official Aid Request Monday

Spain's government said Friday it plans to make its official request for European Union aid for its banking sector Monday, and expects to have the terms for such aid set by July 9, as discussions continue on ways to inject European aid funds directly into ailing Spanish banks.

An unresolved question is how the bank bailout will work.

And from the ECB: ECB takes further measures to increase collateral availability for counterparties

On 20 June 2012 the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) decided on additional measures to improve the access of the banking sector to Eurosystem operations in order to further support the provision of credit to households and non-financial corporations.

The Governing Council has reduced the rating threshold and amended the eligibility requirements for certain asset-backed securities (ABSs). It has thus broadened the scope of the measures to increase collateral availability which were introduced on 8 December 2011 and which remain applicable.

There are details in the press release on acceptable collateral and the associated haircuts.

by Calculated Risk on 6/22/2012 09:19:00 AM

This is something I like to check occasionally as a differnt measure for inflation - as opposed to CPI from the BLS.

This is the US only index of the MIT Billion Prices Project.

This index uses prices for online goods. From MIT:

These indexes are designed to provide real-time information on major inflation trends, not to forecast official inflation announcements. We are constantly adding new categories of goods, but we do not cover 100% of CPI goods and services. The price of services, in particular, are not easy to find online and therefore are not included in our statistics.

Click on graph for larger image.


It appears that year-over-year inflation is around 1.5%.

The recent monthly decline is probably related to oil and gasoline prices, but this is another measure that suggests inflation is not currently a problem.