The FDIC has closed 81 banks this year, by my count. The closures always seem to happen on Fridays, no doubt to stay out of the news cycle. The banks that were closed by the FDIC on Friday include Guaranty Bank, GFG (securities investments were the problem); CapitalSouth Bank, CAPB (done in by construction loans); First Coweta, FCWT.OB (residential mortages); and eBank of Atlanta, EBDC.OB (real estate loans). Per the New York Times:
"These banks did not get in over their heads with derivatives or hide their bad assets in off-balance sheet vehicles. Nor did their traders make bad bets; they generally had no traders. They did not make loans that they expected to sell quickly, so they had plenty of reason to care that the loans would be repaid. What they did do is see loans go bad, in some cases with stunning rapidity, in volumes that they never thought possible.
The fact that so many loans are souring is a testament to how bad the recession, and the collapse in property prices, has been...."
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