"Grasping At Straws" in the Banking Data

The commercial banking industry was still contracting through June. Year-over-year, that is from June 2009 to June 2010, total assets in the United States banking sector dropped by a little more than 1.5%, with the assets of large, domestically chartered banks dropping by 3.0% during this time period. The total assets at small, domestically chartered banks rose by slightly more than 1.0%.

Year-over-year, the loans and leases at commercial banks within the United States dropped by 2.5%. The drop at large, domestically chartered banks was 0.2%, at small, domestically chartered banks was about 3.0%, and at foreign-related institutions the drop was 16.0%.

An interesting pattern is showing up in the data, however, and gives us something to look for going forward. The smaller, domestically chartered banks in the United States increased their loan balances a little bit over the four-week period ending in the week of July 7, 2010.

The Federal Reserve System has defined large commercial banks as the largest twenty-five domestically chartered banks in the United States. These banks control about one-third of the banking assets in America, a total of about $6.9 trillion. Small banks are all of the rest of the domestically charted banks in the country and they number slightly more than 8,000 banks.

Over the past four weeks, all loans and leases at the smaller banks rose by almost $3.0 billion. This is the first time in the past 18 months or so that the small banks have posted an increase in total loans and leases. The increase was not large…but, we are looking for any “green shoots” that we can find.

The increase was not “across the board” but Commercial and Industrial (C&I) loans, business loans, rose by slightly more than $2.0 billion and Consumer loans rose by a little more than $6.5 billion. Real Estate loans dropped by $5.5 billion, mostly in the commercial real estate area. It should be noted that both C&I loans and Consumer loans rose for the last 13-week period, although most of the increase came in the last four weeks. For this latter period, Real Estate loans dropped by more than $21.0 billion, again in the commercial area.

We continue to hear that these smaller banks still have lots of problem commercial real estate loans to deal with and may remain reluctant to lend in this area for an extended period of time.

Remember, it is in the smaller banks that most of the problems still exist relating to bank solvency. At the end of March, there were 775 banks on the problem bank list of the FDIC, implying that roughly one out of every eight of these smaller banks were “problems.” Through July 16, the FDIC had closed 91 banks this year, roughly 3.4 banks each and every week. This pace is expected to continue for at least the next 12 months. Later this month the FDIC will release the list of problem banks it has identified as of June 30, 2010. The expectation is that the number of banks on the list will increase above 775!

At the larger commercial, the largest 25 in the country, Loans and Leases continued to decline. In the last 4-week period these large banks experienced a drop of over $16.0 billion in that line item. For the last 13-week period the drop was in excess of $81.0 billion. Declines in the last 13-week period came in all lending areas as C&I loans fell by about $22.0 billion, Real Estate Loans declined by more than $26.0 billion and Consumer Loans dropped by approximately $31.0 billion.

Declines took place in all loan categories at the large commercial banks over the past four weeks, but the drops were not anywhere near as deep as in the previous two months.

Cash assets at the domestically chartered banks finally seem to be falling. Over the past four weeks, cash at large banks dropped by $35.0 billion while the smaller banks saw cash balances decline by a little more than $11.0 billion. Over the past thirteen weeks, cash assets at the larger banks fell by $61.0 billion while they only fell by $6.0 billion at the smaller banks.

This decline in cash assets is consistent with the drop in excess reserves in the banking system over the past several months. (See http://seekingalpha.com/article/214058-federal-reserve-exit-watch-part-12.)

There was an interesting bump in cash assets at foreign-related institutions during this time period. In the past 4-week period, cash asset at foreign-related institutions rose by $16.0 billion; and they rose by $25.0 in the last 13-week period.

Could this jump have anything to do with the “stress tests” being administered to major European commercial banks?

I don’t remember ever having seen an increase like this in foreign-related banks in such a narrow time span.

Business loans at these foreign-related institutions dropped over the past 4-week and 13-week periods while “other” very short-term lending, which could include loans to banking offices not in the United States, experienced a substantial rise.

Could these movements have anything to do with “window-dressing” for the European “stress tests”?

The summary for this month’s review of the state of the banking industry is much the same as in previous months. The two things to keep a watch on are, first, the small increases in business and consumer lending at the small, domestically chartered banks; and second, the drop in cash assets being held in aggregate by all domestically chartered banks in the United States.

The first piece of information raises hopes that the smaller banks are beginning to lend again to businesses, although not on commercial real estate deals, and consumers, again not on real estate. In terms of the latter, the hopes for a recovery in mortgage lending do not seem very promising as some analysts in the real estate industry predict that foreclosures for the year could approach 1.0 million homes. Some analysts are even saying that banks are not foreclosing as rapidly as they could so as to avoid the housing market being too jammed up with foreclosed houses. That is, the banks are “pacing the foreclosures” so that homes can be sold faster. This does not bode well for the future.

The second piece of information raises hopes that commercial banks are feeling more confident about the future and are, therefore, reducing the amount of cash (excess reserves) they hold on their balance sheets. Not only did lending at the smaller banks increase their lending over the last four weeks, the larger banks only experienced modest declines in their loans outstanding.

Many economists have declared that the recession ended in July 2009. So, the economic recovery has been going on for almost twelve months. The major problem with this claim is that the commercial banking system has not been acting like the recession is over. This has also been reflected in the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve System and in the performance of the monetary aggregates. (See my post referenced above for a discussion on these points.)
Thus, we are scratching around trying to find positive signs in the banking statistics. With this report we are grasping at straws. But, we have not even had tiny straws