Recently, the Chairman of Sunturst Bank said lending institutions are not out of the woods yet and will probably continue to report losses on commercial real estate through 2010. Bank stocks dropped. This is a farce.
Many, if not most, lending institutions are facing the potential of dire straits for a variety of reasons, all centering around the fact that they still have massively overvalued loans and loan products, sloppily underwritten and unsecured (or under secured by deprecating collateral) during a time of high unemployment and weakening business conditions.
The complicity of US accounting authorities, regulators and government has not only kicked the can down the road, but has make the can a lot larger. I outlined this in The Folly of US Financial Political Games and pointed out the poignant comments that other have made on the topic as well (Interesting excerpt from Jeff Nielson, Banks are actually worse off now than they were before).
I called the collapse of the regional banking system about a year and a half ago with the Doo Doo 32 (As I see it, these 32 banks and thrifts are in deep doo-doo!). Glancing at this list over a year later (no one thought the regional banks were even at risk when I came out with the list) in search of overlooked bear candidates), we excluded 6 banks which have been acquired or forced to close and excluded 13 banks with share price of less than $15. Of the remaining 13 banks, we looked deeper into six banks - BB&T Corp, Glacier Bancorp, Sandy Spring Bancorp, M&T Bank Corp, TriCo Bancshares, Zions Bancorp. Based on the comparative analysis of valuation multiples, past stock price performance, bank’s loan and investment portfolio and operational performance (based on Bloomberg data and latest filings). I will produce the results of the analysis and the most Doo Doo bank for 2009 for subscribers over the nest few days.
The WSJ referenced in The Folly of US Financial Political Games holds the key to what will bring many banks down, even the better run ones have inested in securities th.at hare dropping in value by 20% to 50%, on a quarterly basis. To make things considerably worse, as also focused on in the politial games article, the powers that be have actually endorsed the fraudulent reporting of said assets, essentially giving the ok to inflate the book value of this junk in order to create earnings and value where none is available. Of course, as can be seen in the graphs, the banks share prices have responded accordingly, increasing by one hundred percent while the market value of their assets drop by 20 to 50%, taking humongous amounts, if not all, of the banks tangible equity with it. In addition, the commercial real estate and construction sectors are looking to get much worse in terms of losses. Just ask Suntrust.
If you don't believe him, just look at the implied leverage of some of these popular banks and imagine what happens to tangible equity when these investments drop in value (ex. somre preferred trust and CDO portfolios have lost over 50% in market value this past quarter):
| Bank | Investments/Common Equity |
| JPM Chase | 744% (Whoa!! - more on them in my next post) |
| Wells Fargo | 373% |
| Bank of America | 371% |
| PNC | 359% |
| Sandy Spring Bancorp | 311% |
| BB&T Corp | 245% |
| U.S. Bancorp | 212% |
| SunTrust | 200% |
Still not convinced, let's look at how conservative select members of the surviving Doo Doo 32 are in terms of financial cushioning against further loss:
| Bank | Cushion (Reserve less NPA) as % of common equity |
| SunTrust | -23.3% |
| Sandy Spring Bancorp | -23.1% |
| Zions Bancorp | -19.9% |
| Glacier Bancorp | -9.6% |
| BB&T Corp | -8.3% |
| M&T Bank Corp | -7.8% |
| TriCo Bancshares | -7.6% |
Do you still believe this to be a bank bull market in lieu of a bear market bounce feuled by legalized financial fraud??? Well, let's pick a Doo Doo 32 bank and go through the books, shall we...
Zions Bancorp, a bank with about 4$4.5 billion of tangible equty, also has...
| Investments | ||
| Level 1 | 267,044 | 6.7% |
| Level 2 | 1,826,631 | 45.9% |
| Level 3 | 1,888,828 | 47.4% |
About half of this banks ENTIRE investment portfolio is not valued by market transactions, but marked to managements opinion, which of course is most rosy, to be sure:-)
| Non agency mortgage backed securities as % of equity | 51.1% |
Non-agency MBS has the same value | |
| Mortage loans as % of equity | 654.4% |
I think they over did it on the leverage front here.
So, exactly how is that investment portfolio doing???
| 30-Jun-09 | Amortized cost | Fair value | Unrealized gain and loss |
| Available-for-sale | |||
| U.S. Treasury securities | 25,113 | 25,845 | 2.9% |
| U.S. Government agencies and corporations: | |||
| Agency securities | 290,504 | 296,378 | 2.0% |
| Agency guaranteed mortgage-backed securities | 411,180 | 420,684 | 2.3% |
| Small Business Administration loan-backed securities | 834,883 | 812,530 | -2.7% |
| Municipal securities | 251,029 | 252,833 | 0.7% |
| Asset-backed securities: | |||
| Trust preferred securities - banks and insurance | 2,173,757 | 1,536,164 | -29.3% |
| Trust preferred securities - real estate investment trusts | 76,745 | 34,580 | -54.9% |
| Auction rate securities | 171,910 | 171,252 | -0.4% |
| Other | 161,983 | 107,329 | -33.7% |
| Mutual funds and stock | 246,300 | 246,300 | 0.0% |
| Total | 4,643,404 | 3,903,895 | -15.9% |
| Held-to-maturity | |||
| Municipal securities | 671,671 | 671,399 | 0.0% |
| Asset-backed securities: | |||
| Trust preferred securities - banks and insurance | 265,292 | 200,972 | -24.2% |
| Other | 32,486 | 18,717 | -42.4% |
| Other debt securities | 100 | 98 | -2.0% |
| Total | 969,549 | 891,186 | -8.1% |
Keep in mind that these losses are akin to the one's you and I would take in an institutional margin account. Zions has a leverage ratio of 13x and investments to common equity of 189%. One dollar of investment losses equates to much more than one dollar of lost equity to this bank and its shareholders and investors.
If we look at the actual loan portfolio...
| Commercial lending: (in million) | % of loan type | % of loan portfolio | |
| Commercial and industrial | $10,588 | 53% | 25.5% |
| Leasing | 423 | 2% | 1.0% |
| Owner occupied | 8,782 | 44% | 21.1% |
| Total commercial lending | 19,793 | 100% | 47.7% |
| Commercial real estate: | |||
| Construction and land development | 6,848 | 50% | 16.5% |
| Term | 6,795 | 50% | 16.4% |
| Total commercial real estate | 13,643 | 100% | 32.9% |
| Consumer: | |||
| Home equity credit line | 2,086 | 29% | 5.0% |
| 1-4 family residential | 3,781 | 53% | 9.1% |
| Construction and other consumer real estate | 599 | 8% | 1.4% |
| Bankcard and other revolving plans | 344 | 5% | 0.8% |
| Other | 342 | 5% | 0.8% |
| Total consumer | 7,152 | 100% | 17.2% |
| Foreign loans | 67 | 0% | 0.2% |
| FDIC-supported assets | 875 | 2% | 2.1% |
| Total loans | $41,530 | 100% | 100.0% |
A full 1/3 is CRE, with half of that being construction. For those who don't know what that means... See "Who are ya gonna believe, the pundits or your lying eyes?" and "Who are you going to believe, the pundits or your lying eyes, part 2".
Another 17% is consumer with HELOCS (basically unsecured variable debt), residential 1-4 family and construction loans. All told this is 4x their tangible equity, and this is some of the worse lending categories to be in right now. I will expound on other banks, including the extreme risk that JPM and Goldman pose to the system in my next post (or two). In the meantime, here is plenty of related proprietary research and opinion on the banking farce and fake stress test material for any who are interested.
1. Welcome to the Big Bank Bamboozle!
(Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust Blog/MyBlog)
I have produced a downloadable PDF which clearly shows exactly how far off the banks and SCAP bank stress tests are from the delinquency and foreclosure information that the Federal government distr
Tuesday, 12 May 2009
2. The Real Stress Test Results
(Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust Blog/MyBlog)
...as other private sources. A very big difference from what was proffered through the media: PNC SCAP Results recast using FDIC and NY Fed data - Retail 2009-05-15 07:30:25 395.18 Kb P...
Friday, 15 May 2009
3. America, You have been outright lied to! Bamboozled! Swindled! Hoodwinked! The Worst Case Scenario
(Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust Blog/MyBlog)
...ntly stating that banks are well capitalized! The table below presents a comparison of the Fed's SCAP (stress test) assumption for cumulative 2 year loss rate and likely two year cumulative e...
Monday, 11 May 2009
9. The Re-Release of the Open Source Mortgage Default Model
(Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust Blog/MyBlog)
... errors from a reader, along with suggestions on how he felt the model could be improved. I checked the SCAP Loss Assumptions file that he sent and although there is a difference of approach followed ...
Monday, 18 May 2009
11. Green Shoots are Being Fertilized by Brown Turds in the Mortgage Markets
(Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust Blog/MyBlog)
...ings are you referring to?] § WFC Investment No... § WFC Investment No... § PNC SCAP Results ... § PNC SCAP Results ... § BoomBustBlog.com'... § Small r...
Friday, 10 July 2009
12. Beware of Bank Earnings Propaganda - They are still in BIG trouble!
(Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust Blog/MyBlog)
... you referring to? then take a look at the hard data released by the FDIC and the NY Fed: Revised SCAP Assumptions Public Open Source Version 1.1 2009-05-18 15:15:47 1.21 Mb) as well as an expla...
Monday, 06 July 2009
13. Banker Busted?
(Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust Blog/MyBlog)
... data in my recent posts if you doubt this: BoomBustBlog.com's Realistic Recast of SCAP 2009-05-12 14:52:09 My comments on the NYC condo market which seems to have wrinkled a ...
Friday, 05 June 2009
15. Fact, Fiction, Farce and Lies! What happened to the Bank Bears?
(Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust Blog/MyBlog)
...ears, Wells Fargo's capital would fall short by US$34.3 billion and not US$13.7 billion as shown by the SCAP result (see America, You have been outright lied to! Bamboozled! Swindled! Hoodwinked! The ...
Thursday, 13 August 2009
16. PNC plus CRE = Doo Doo hitting the Fan
(Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust Blog/MyBlog)
...d earnings are you referring to?] § WFC Investment No... § WFC Investment No... § PNC SCAP Results ... § PNC SCAP Results ... § BoomBustBlog.com'... § Small ret...
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
17. Wells Fargo reports in a few hours and I wonder how forthcoming they will be with their credit losse
(Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust Blog/MyBlog)
...d on our assumptions on the bank's loan losses (professional subscribers, please refer to the "SCAP" in the WFC forensic analysis - See WFC Investment Note 22 May 09 - Pro), even under t...
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
18. The difference between a professional investor and a professional reporter is...
(Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust Blog/MyBlog)
... have made executives at financial firms with large trading and investment-banking operations eager to escape TARP. Willingness, or inability to do anything about it due to their current situation? ...
Thursday, 09 July 2009
19. The two tailed banking crisis
(Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust Blog/MyBlog)
... BoomBustBlog research: § WFC Investment No... § WFC Investment No... § PNC SCAP Results ... § PNC SCAP Results ... § BoomBustBlog.com'... § Small r...
Sunday, 28 June 2009
20. Reggie Middleton's Goldman Sach's Stress Test: Breaking Ranks with the Crowd Once Again!
(Reggie Middleton's Boom Bust Blog/MyBlog)
...grounded measure of risk adjusted return) of 14.8% for GS among its peer group. Just so this doesn't escape anybody, GS has the lowest risk adjusted return on the Street. Simply analyzing earnings...
Monday, 13 April 2009
