Policy Observations On Federal Reserve Releasing 2026 Stress Test Results

Research evidence excerpt

Policy Observations On Federal Reserve Releasing 2026 Stress Test Results

TD Securities (USA) LLC POLICY NOTE

June 24, 2026

■WRG Financial Services Policy Observations On Federal Reserve

Releasing 2026 Stress Test Results

Jaret Seiberg THE TD COWEN INSIGHT

202 868 5313

The Federal Reserve released 2026 stress test results showing that all 32 banks would have

jaret.seiberg@tdsecurities.com

enough capital to keep lending even after a severely adverse economic event. From a policy

perspective, we view these results as providing political cover for the Fed to finalize proposed

Basel 3 Endgame capital proposals. We note that this year's test will not result in updated

Stress Capital Buffers.

What Is Happening

The Federal Reserve this evening released the results of the 2026 stress test.

■All 32 large banks remained above their minimum Common Equity Tier 1 capital

requirements despite the stress test losses.

■Projected losses were $708 billion, which caused bank capital to decline 1.6 percentage

points in aggregate.

■By way of background, the test assumed a 39% decline in commercial real estate prices and

a 30% decline in home prices. The unemployment rate hit 10%.

The results are here.

Our View

1 This has no impact on big bank capital requirements, which makes this year's test less

relevant. The Federal Reserve voted in February to maintain the 2025 Stress Capital Buffers

for 2026 because it is in the process of subjecting the stress test models to public comment.

It also eliminated the prohibition on banks releasing their capital plans until the stress test

results are public. The 2025 SCB requirements are here.

2 The Fed has eliminated the supplemental scenarios. Introduced when Biden was president,