Fed ‘Wiped Out’ $65 Billion Excess Capital In CCAR: Bernstein

Now that the details of this year’s CCAR stress tests are starting to fade, the thing that most people remember are Zions Bancorporation (NASDAQ:ZION) failing grade and a handful of rejected capital plans. That this was the first year the Federal Reserve used independent projections, instead of relying on banks’ own balance sheet projections, seems to have been forgotten as critics call for more transparency from the Fed.

“We estimate that un-explained changes to the Fed’s application of a generally consistent (if not slightly better) stress scenario in 2014, wiped out a cumulative $65b of excess capital from the large-cap banks relative to results from the 2013 CCAR test,” writes Bernstein Research senior analyst John McDonald. “This includes...