Bearish on Banks – All The Big Ones

From the New York Times Dealbook Blog:

… Mr. Mayo, who recently left his job covering bank stocks for Deutsche Bank to join a unit of Calyon, initiated coverage of 11 large banks in the United States on Monday, and his first report at his new firm assigns all of them “underperform” or “sell” ratings.

The report was full of gloomy predictions, not least of which was this one: Mr. Mayo projects that loan losses in the current financial crisis will eventually exceed the levels experienced during the Great Depression.

In 1934, loan losses as a percentage of total loans outstanding reached a peak of 3.4 percent.

There’s also more here in a story just out from the Times.