The FDIC has just released its latest assessment of the number of banks it considers in trouble, and it's a record: There are 305 American banks that are thought to have serious financial troubles or problems with management that might threaten their continuing operations.
This figure isn't exactly good news for the American economy, but again, there are some caveats. (The FDIC doesn't release the names of the individual banks for fear of causing runs at any of them.) For one thing, as with a lot of these newly released figures, they are old: this is the number for the first quarter of 2009, which ended in March. Thirty-six banks failed in the first quarter, and all of them were presumably troubled, so we can subtract those from the overall figure.
But that leaves 269 troubled banks, which would still be a record. And the number of assets controlled by those banks is up to $220 billion, whereas it was a mere $159 billion at the previous report. That suggests that more large banks are facing trouble.
The banking sector is uniquely significant to our economy. We need to see a drop in these "troubled bank" figures before we can be sure we're on the road to recovery.
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