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Discussion Paper
Trading Activities at Systemically Important Banks, Part 3 : What Drives Trading Performance?
It is well known by now that before the financial crisis, systemically important banks and nonbank broker-dealers maintained large proprietary trading operations and had relied on those operations as a key source of trading revenue, in addition to revenue generated by facilitating clients' trading needs. This note aims to identify the key drivers of the trading performance of systemically important banks in the post-crisis period.
Working Paper
COVID-19 as a Stress Test: Assessing the Bank Regulatory Framework
The widespread economic damage caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic poses the first major test of the bank regulatory reforms put in place following the global financial crisis. This study assesses this framework, with an emphasis on capital and liquidity requirements. Leading up to the COVID-19 crisis, banks were well-capitalized and held ample liquid assets, reflecting in part heightened requirements. Capital requirements were comparable across major jurisdictions, despite differences in the implementation of the international Basel standards. The overall robust capital and liquidity ...
Discussion Paper
Trading Activities at Systemically Important Banks, Part 1 : Recent Trends in Trading Performance
Using a confidential data set collected daily by onsite supervisors, this note provides a comprehensive look at the performance of systemically important banks’ trading and market-making activities since the financial crisis.
Working Paper
Banks as Regulated Traders
This paper uses detailed high-frequency regulatory data to evaluate whether trading increases or decreases systemic risk in the U.S. banking sector. We estimate the sensitivity of weekly bank trading net profits to a variety of aggregate risk factors, which include equities, fixed-income, derivatives, foreign exchange, and commodities. We find that U.S. banks had large trading exposures to equity market risk before the introduction of the Volcker Rule in 2014 and that they curtailed these exposures afterwards. Pre-rule equity risk exposures were large across the board of the main asset ...
Discussion Paper
Trading Activities at Systemically Important Banks, Part 2 : What Happened during Recent Risk Events?
As documented in the FEDS Notes article "Trading Activities at Systemically Important Banks, Part 1: Recent Trends in Trading Performance," trading performance at systemically important banks, measured by trading revenue per dollar of value-at-risk (VaR) committed, has trended up over the past few years.
Working Paper
Banks as Regulated Traders
Banks use trading as a vehicle to take risk. Using unique high-frequency regulatory data, we estimate the sensitivity of weekly bank trading profits to aggregate equity, fixed-income, credit, currency and commodity risk factors. Our estimates imply that U.S. banks had large trading exposures to equity market risk before the Volcker Rule, which they curtailed afterwards. They also have exposures to credit and currency risk. The results hold up in a quasi-natural experimental design that exploits the phased-in introduction of reporting requirements to address identification. Heterogeneity and ...
Discussion Paper
Banks' Backtesting Exceptions during the COVID-19 Crash: Causes and Consequences
Banks' numerous and simultaneous backtesting exceptions in March 2020, during the COVID-19-related market crash, would have amplified their already-large spike in market risk capital requirements in the absence of regulatory intervention. This note provides background on how backtesting exceptions affect capital requirements generally, the source of those exceptions during the COVID-19 crash, and how regulators exercised discretion to mitigate the unintended capital increase.