Posted on 08/09/23
| News Source: FOX45
It's tough times for the banking industry as more institutions face downgrades and credit rating costs just as consumer debt is climbing and credit card balances across the country surpass $1 trillion.
Moody's cut the credit rating of several U.S. banks on Monday and said it may downgrade some of the nation's bigger lenders.
Former White House Economic Adviser Steve Moore joined The National Desk’s Scott Thuman to discuss how it will affect the U.S. banking industry and whether a mild recession or high-interest rates will impact what happens later this year.
"The main issue here is that we've had now 11 rate increases on interest rates by the Fed over the last 14 months or so. So, you've got this incredibly steep almost unprecedented rise in interest rates in a very short time where remember the Fed funds rate was close to zero now it's at about five and a half percent and a lot of banks were kind of caught with their pants down, and they didn't think that this was coming" Moore said. "So they're holding a lot of bonds that are worth much less than they were a year ago because interest rates have risen so quickly. And so I think a lot of this has to do with and by the way, the Fed may not be done, you know, they've made they're talking now about maybe another quarter percentage point rise in rates. So that's the bad news. The good news is, most banks are pretty well capitalized right now and in pretty good shape. So I'm not expecting to see a domino effect here but I do think you will see some more banks fail as we did with Silicon Valley Bank earlier this year."
The firm's recession forecast is at odds with economists at the Federal Reserve who recently scrapped their recession forecast. Bank of America also ditched theirs. In a recent interview with Bloomberg, CEO Brian Moynihan pointed to the strong job market and projections for the unemployment rate to remain low.
“People are employed, they have money, they’re spending money, and the Fed is trying to slow down the economy," Moynihan said. "And it looks like we’re reaching a pretty good equilibrium.”