by Calculated Risk on 2/28/2016 08:21:00 PM

Last week the FDIC released its “Quarterly Banking Profile” for Q4 2015.

Declines in expenses for litigation at a few large banks combined with moderate revenue growth to lift fourth-quarter net income at FDIC-insured institutions to $40.8 billion, an increase of $4.4 billion (11.9 percent) compared with fourth quarter 2014. The improving trend in earnings was widespread.
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The number of insured institutions on the FDIC’s “Problem List” declined from 203 to 183 during the quarter, and total assets of problem institutions fell from $51.1 billion to $46.8 billion. For all of 2015, there were 305 mergers of insured institutions, one new charter was added, and eight banks failed.

Click on graph for larger image.

On the REO front, the report showed that the carrying value of one-to-four family REO properties at FDIC institutions declined to $4.66 billion at the end of December, down from $4.91 billion at then end of September and $5.98 billion at the end of 2014.

REO is down from $14.6 billion in 2010.

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of February 21, 2016

• February 2016: Unofficial Problem Bank list declines to 228 Institutions

Monday:
• At 9:45 AM ET, Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for February. The consensus is for a reading of 52.9, down from 55.6 in January.

• At 10:00 AM, Pending Home Sales Index for January. The consensus is for a 0.5% increase in the index.

• At 10:30 AM, Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey for February.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: currently S&P futures and DOW futures are mostly unchanged (fair value).

Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $32.69 per barrel and Brent at $35.00 per barrel.  A year ago, WTI was at $50, and Brent was at $61 - so prices are down about 40% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $1.75 per gallon (down about $0.65 per gallon from a year ago).