U.S. Banks’ Unrealized Losses Appear Still To Be Growing

There is evidence that unrealized losses continued rising through the fourth quarter in the U.S. banking system, in that the banks’ use of the Bank Term Lending Program to borrow cheap funds from the Federal Reserve, has taken a jump late in the quarter. The official total of unrealized losses in the banking system was $511 billion at the end of the second quarter of 2023, and $684 billion at the end of the third quarter; the fourth quarter total is not published yet.