May 04, 2009 at 08:00 PM
A bank affiliated with an insurer appears to be strong enough to survive severe deterioration in the economy, an analyst says.
Martin Weiss, president of Weiss Research Inc., Jupiter, Fla., who has been rating banks for decades, looked at 15 of the 19 largest U.S. bank holding companies.
The federal regulators giving the banks their stress tests appear to be using relatively loose standards, Weiss says.
If the economy gets significantly worse than the stress test standards imply, only 4 of the 19 banks appear to be strong enough to survive that severe deterioration, Weiss says.
Weiss says one of the bank holding companies that does appear to be strong enough to survive is MetLife Inc., New York.
MetLife is the only company on Weiss’s list that is also known for being a major insurance holding company.
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