Bank On It: Biggest U.S. Lenders Pass Fed's Stress Tests

Bank On It: Biggest U.S. Lenders Pass Fed's Stress Tests

For the third time in as many years, all 34 of the country's biggest banks met the minimum capital standards in annual Federal Reserve stress tests designed to safeguard the U.S. from another financial crisis.

The reviews gauged whether lenders with more than $50 billion in assets could withstand a hypothetical "severe global recession" in which the unemployment rate peaks at 10% by the third quarter of 2018 while equity prices fall by 50% through the end of this year.

Overall, the results showed that the banking sector is well-capitalized, with the vast majority of firms maintaining significant capital buffers in the scenario. However, a few institutions came close to a minimum level that will be considered in a second, more important set of tests coming next week, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ( (GS) ) , Morgan Stanley ( (MS) ) and State Street Corp. ( (STT) ) .

One new bank that participated in the test, CIT Group Inc. ( (CIT) ) , was well above minimum requirements, much better than a private trial run last year.

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This article was written by a staff member of TheStreet.