Consumers and investors have been waiting for weeks for the results of the Treasury Department’s “stress tests” of the nation’s 19 largest banks. And it won’t be until May 4 that they receive definitive results. But a senior Obama administration official says the Treasury Department has indicated that there is substantial value in the banks tested and that there are no big shocks coming, Time magazine reports today. That likely means no big bank will be deemed too stressed to survive. The official says the Treasury does believe some of the banks will need additional capital to make them stronger, and in all likelihood the government will identify those banks.
The bank stress tests are considered one of the key components of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and President Barack Obama’s plan to fix the financial system. They are designed to determine which banks would fail and which would survive if the economy worsens, as some economists expect.
