Share of U.S. Banks Losing Money (FDIC, Quarterly)

## What this measures

The percent of FDIC-insured institutions that reported negative net income in the quarter.

## Why it matters

Industry return on assets is dominated by the largest banks. This counts every bank equally, so it shows how widespread earnings trouble is among the thousands of smaller banks.

## How to read it

Higher is worse. Fourth-quarter readings tend to run higher, as banks book year-end adjustments. Read it with return on assets (credit.banks.qbp.roa) and the problem bank count (credit.banks.problem_banks.count).

## What it does not say

It weights a small bank the same as a large one, and a bank with a tiny loss counts the same as one with a large loss. Newly chartered banks often lose money in their first years. It covers FDIC-insured institutions only.

## Source

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Quarterly Banking Profile, "QBP time series spreadsheets" workbook (sheet "Ratios by Asset Size Groups", block "Percent of Institutions Reporting Negative Quarterly Net Income", row "All Insured Institutions"), linked from fdic.gov/quarterly-banking-profile each quarter. Public domain: the FDIC data catalog (fdic.gov/data.json) licenses its banking data under the U.S. public domain label, use restriction "Unrestricted". Source: FDIC. Refreshed weekly by /api/cron/credit-banks-sync, which re-reads the full history from the newest QBP.