All major US banks passed the Fed's annual stress test, clearing the way for
tens of billions of dollars in share buybacks and dividends. The Fed said 2026
results will not affect capital requirements as it continues to revise the
exercise to be more favorable to banks. The test covered 32 large bank holding
companies under a severe global shock — commercial real estate down 39%,
residential prices down 30%, unemployment peaking at 10% — and assumed lenders
would absorb more than $708bn of loan losses. Regulators said aggregate capital
fell only 1.6 percentage points and remained above minimum requirements.
