This is the crucial next step.
When bank lending begins to grow, the Fed will have a real problem.
* * * * * J B K * * * * *
San Francisco
Main Street teamed up with Wall Street to produce something the four biggest U.S. lenders haven't had since the banking crisis began two years ago: reason for optimism.
Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co., beneficiaries of $140 billion in taxpayer funds, reduced loan-loss provision expenses from last quarter and said the bottom of the credit cycle was past. Their investment-banking arms capitalized on fixed-income trading, leading to combined first-quarter profits of $13.4 billion, the most since the second quarter of 2007 before the crisis began. Citigroup reduced reserves for the first time since 2006.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aAWbvsgX2rA0&pos=10
