In economics, a recession is a business cycle contraction when there is a general slowdown in economic activity. Macroeconomic indicators such as GDP, investment spending, capacity utilization, household income, business profits, and inflation fall, while bankruptcies and the unemployment rate rise. In the United Kingdom, it is defined as a negative economic growth for two consecutive quarters.
In finance, a high-yield bond is a bond that is rated below investment grade. These bonds have a higher risk of default or other adverse credit events, but typically pay higher yields than better quality bonds in order to make them attractive to investors. Sometimes the company can provide new bonds as a part of yield which can only be redeemed after its expiry or maturity.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is a United States government corporation providing deposit insurance to depositors in U.S. commercial banks and savings institutions. The FDIC was created by the 1933 Banking Act, enacted during the Great Depression to restore trust in the American banking system. More than one-third of banks failed in the years before the FDIC's creation, and bank runs were common. The insurance limit was initially US$2,500 per ownership category, and this was increased several times over the years. Since the passage of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2011, the FDIC insures deposits in member banks up to US$250,000 per ownership category.
Alpha Bank is the second largest Greek bank by total assets, and the largest by market capitalization of €2.13 billion. It has a subsidiary and branch in London England, and branches and subsidiaries throughout Southeastern Europe. Founded in 1879, it has been controlled by the Costopoulos family since its inception. Currently Ioannis Costopoulos, grandson of original founder John F. Costopoulos, and nephew of Stavros Costopoulos, foreign minister in the government of Georgios Papandreou, is the honorary chairman. On January 16, 2015, Alpha Bank requested Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA) from the Bank of Greece.
A capital requirement is the amount of capital a bank or other financial institution has to hold as required by its financial regulator. This is usually expressed as a capital adequacy ratio of equity that must be held as a percentage of risk-weighted assets. These requirements are put into place to ensure that these institutions do not take on excess leverage and become insolvent. Capital requirements govern the ratio of equity to debt, recorded on the liabilities and equity side of a firm's balance sheet. They should not be confused with reserve requirements, which govern the assets side of a bank's balance sheet—in particular, the proportion of its assets it must hold in cash or highly-liquid assets.
The United States subprime mortgage crisis was a nationwide financial crisis, occurring between 2007 and 2010, that contributed to the U.S. recession of December 2007 – June 2009. It was triggered by a large decline in home prices after the collapse of a housing bubble, leading to mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures and the devaluation of housing-related securities. Declines in residential investment preceded the recession and were followed by reductions in household spending and then business investment. Spending reductions were more significant in areas with a combination of high household debt and larger housing price declines.
The subprime mortgage crisis impact timeline lists dates relevant to the creation of a United States housing bubble and the 2005 housing bubble burst and the subprime mortgage crisis which developed during 2007 and 2008. It includes United States enactment of government laws and regulations, as well as public and private actions which affected the housing industry and related banking and investment activity. It also notes details of important incidents in the United States, such as bankruptcies and takeovers, and information and statistics about relevant trends. For more information on reverberations of this crisis throughout the global financial system see Financial crisis of 2007–2008.
The Great Recession was a period of general economic decline observed in world markets during the late 2000s and early 2010s. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country. The International Monetary Fund concluded that the overall impact was the most severe since the Great Depression in the 1930s. The Great Recession stemmed from the collapse of the United States real-estate market, in relation to the financial crisis of 2007 to 2008 and U.S. subprime mortgage crisis of 2007 to 2009, though policies of other nations contributed also. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession in the United States began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, thus extending over 19 months. The Great Recession resulted in the scarcity of valuable assets in the market economy and the collapse of the financial sector (banks) in the world economy. Some banks were bailed out by the Federal government of the United States.
This article provides background information regarding the subprime mortgage crisis. It discusses subprime lending, foreclosures, risk types, and mechanisms through which various entities involved were affected by the crisis.
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, commonly referred to as a bailout of the U.S. financial system, is a law enacted subsequently to the subprime mortgage crisis authorizing the United States Secretary of the Treasury to spend up to $700 billion to purchase distressed assets, especially mortgage-backed securities, and supply cash directly to banks. The funds for purchase of distressed assets were mostly redirected to inject capital into banks and other financial institutions while the Treasury continued to examine the usefulness of targeted asset purchases. Both foreign and domestic banks are included in the program. The Act was proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson during the global financial crisis of 2008 and signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008.
The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a program of the United States government to purchase toxic assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector that was passed by a Democratic Party controlled Congress and signed into law by Republican Party President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008. It was a component of the government's measures in 2008 to address the subprime mortgage crisis.
The European recession is part of the Great Recession, which began inside the United States. The crisis spread to Europe rapidly and affected much of the region with several countries already in recession as of February 2009, and most others suffering marked economic setbacks. The global recession was first seen in Europe, as Ireland was the first country to fall in a recession from Q2-Q3 2007 – followed by temporary growth in Q4 2007 – and then a two-year-long recession.
The financial position of the United States includes assets of at least $269.6 trillion and debts of $145.8 trillion to produce a net worth of at least $123.8 trillion as of Q1 2014.
The National Asset Management Agency is a body created by the government of Ireland in late 2009, in response to the Irish financial crisis and the deflation of the Irish property bubble.
The Supervisory Capital Assessment Program, publicly described as the bank stress tests, was an assessment of capital conducted by the Federal Reserve System and thrift supervisors to determine if the largest U.S. financial organizations had sufficient capital buffers to withstand the recession and the financial market turmoil. The test used two macroeconomic scenarios, one based on baseline conditions and the other with more pessimistic expectations, to plot a 'What If?' exploration into the banking situation in the rest of 2009 and into 2010. The capital levels at 19 institutions were assessed based on their Tier 1 common capital, although it was originally thought that regulators would use tangible common equity as the yardstick. The results of the tests were released on May 7, 2009, at 5pm EST.
Basel III is a global, voluntary regulatory framework on bank capital adequacy, stress testing, and market liquidity risk. This third installment of the Basel Accords was developed in response to the deficiencies in financial regulation revealed by the financial crisis of 2007–08. It is intended to strengthen bank capital requirements by increasing bank liquidity and decreasing bank leverage.
The Great Recession in the United States was a severe financial crisis combined with a deep recession. While the recession officially lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, it took several years for the economy to recover to pre-crisis levels of employment and output. This slow recovery was due in part to households and financial institutions paying off debts accumulated in the years preceding the crisis along with restrained government spending following initial stimulus efforts. It followed the bursting of the housing bubble, the housing market correction and subprime mortgage crisis.
The financial crisis of 2007–2008, also known as the global financial crisis and the 2008 financial crisis, is considered by many economists to have been the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
