Big Banks’ Trading Losses Are Mounting

Including apparent losses today, the U.S. stock markets have dropped about 13% of the their claimed capitalization in the past two months’ inflation storm; but the stocks of the biggest banks – Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo – are more than leading the way, having lost 20% of their value during that time. After the huge commodity inflation shock of March, “trading profits” lost their magic for these banks which scarcely lend money for economic activity anymore. As EIR reported in the May 9 Morning Briefing, four big European banks alone had to report close to $10 billion in outright capital losses from that commodity shock—and those losses are still coming. The European big losers were Société Générale, Unicredit, ING and Intesa Sanpaolo.