Until Q1 2006, this panel counts the same assets twice

The discontinuity

The filer count for every quarter of the panel, and what you get if you sum TOTAL_ASSETS over those filers. The dashed red series is drawn to be discarded: it is not a measure of the holding-company system, it is the same assets added up more than once. The vertical rule marks the break quarter.

Source: Federal Reserve, FR Y-9C Consolidated Financial Statements for Holding Companies 181,114 filings, 139 quarters. The break quarter is derived, not assumed: it is the largest quarter-on-quarter fall in the filer count anywhere in the panel (2,310 to 1,009). Dollar fields are thousands of USD. Methodology

The ten largest filers that vanished at Q1 2006

Consolidated assets as reported at Q4 2005, the last quarter each of these entities filed. A raised reporting threshold removes small filers. It does not remove these: the largest entity to stop filing reported $1.28T.

Source: Federal Reserve, FR Y-9C Consolidated Financial Statements for Holding Companies Filers present at Q4 2005 and absent at Q1 2006, ranked by reported consolidated assets. Methodology

The clean panel, Q1 2006 to Q1 2021

61 quarters that can be summed. Consolidated assets rise from $11.53T to $25.07T, while the filer count goes from 1,009 to 349, a 65.4% fall between the endpoints. The path is not monotone: the count reaches 1,178 at Q1 2013 before it drops. Two of the three largest single-quarter falls anywhere in the panel happen inside this window, so part of the decline is a change in who has to file rather than in who exists.

Source: Federal Reserve, FR Y-9C Consolidated Financial Statements for Holding Companies Sums of TOTAL_ASSETS_THOUSANDS_USD over every filer in each quarter from Q1 2006. Nominal dollars, as filed. Methodology

Concentration: the finding is that there is no finding

Read naively, the top-5 share of consolidated assets goes from 45.8% at Q1 2006 to 48.8% at Q1 2021, peaking at 55.6% at Q4 2008. That series is not comparable across quarters: the denominator lost 660 filers over the same span, and dropping small filers raises a top-5 share by construction. Recompute it on a fixed population, the largest 349 filers, and the share is 47.5% at Q1 2006 against 48.8% at Q1 2021: up 1.3 points in 15 years, and 8.8 points below its Q4 2008 peak of 57.6%. The consolidation this layer is supposed to show is 1.3 points of top-5 share. That is the result, and it is a null one.

Source: Federal Reserve, FR Y-9C Consolidated Financial Statements for Holding Companies Shares of summed TOTAL_ASSETS_THOUSANDS_USD in each quarter. The fixed-population series is computable in 59 of the 61 clean-panel quarters; the other 2 have fewer than 349 filers, so the line breaks rather than being extrapolated. Methodology

Capital, in aggregate

Equity capital over assets rises from 8.20% at Q1 2006 to 9.75% at Q1 2021; Tier 1 over assets, from 6.14% to 7.90%. Both are aggregate ratios, sum of the numerator over sum of the denominator, not the average of filer-level ratios. The equity line is common and preferred equity capital, which on this form excludes noncontrolling interests, so it is not the residual of assets minus liabilities. The Tier 1 line is drawn only over filers that report Tier 1: 344 of 349 at Q1 2021. A filer that does not report it is rendered n/a, never zero.

Source: Federal Reserve, FR Y-9C Consolidated Financial Statements for Holding Companies Tier 1 is null in every one of the 56,150 filings dated before Q1 1996, the first quarter any filer reports it, and in 4,124 filings from that quarter onward; a separate 329 filings report a genuine zero. Both numerator and denominator of this ratio are summed over reporting filers only: nulls are excluded, not zero-filled. Methodology

The layer above the insured bank, at Q1 2021

At the panel’s last quarter, 349 holding companies consolidate $25.07T, while the 5,044 FDIC-insured institutions that /banks scores hold $22.73T. The ratio is 1.103. These are two reporting perimeters, not two tiers of a stack: a holding company’s consolidated total already contains its insured bank, so the two levels overlap and must never be added. The $2.34T difference is a residual between two different populations, and it cannot be read as the size of the nonbank system: the FDIC universe also contains insured banks owned by no FR Y-9C filer.

Source: Federal Reserve, FR Y-9C Consolidated Financial Statements for Holding Companies | FDIC, quarterly financial data on insured institutions bhc_financials and fdic_financials at Q1 2021, both in thousands of USD. Methodology

These filers are not all banks

Calling this panel “the US banking system” would be wrong. It is the set of FR Y-9C filers, and that set has included an insurer, a reciprocal inter-insurance exchange, two former investment banks and a card company. Their first and last filing quarters are below. When one of them joins or leaves the panel, the consolidated total moves even though no bank’s balance sheet changed.

Source: Federal Reserve, FR Y-9C Consolidated Financial Statements for Holding Companies Five filers selected by RSSD to show the panel's composition; the peak is the largest consolidated total each ever reported. Methodology

The panel is a moving regulatory window

The three largest quarter-on-quarter falls in the filer count. At each one the median filer jumps in size by the multiple in the last column, which is the signature of a raised reporting threshold rather than of exits. Any mean, share or ratio computed across one of these boundaries compares two different populations.

Source: Federal Reserve, FR Y-9C Consolidated Financial Statements for Holding Companies Median of TOTAL_ASSETS_THOUSANDS_USD across the filers in each quarter. The first row is also the double-count break. Methodology

The 25 largest holding companies at Q1 2021

Ranked by consolidated assets at the last quarter in the panel, with each one’s share of the $25.07T consolidated by all 349 filers. Tier 1 is shown as filed; where a filer did not report it the cell reads n/a.

Source: Federal Reserve, FR Y-9C Consolidated Financial Statements for Holding Companies As filed for Q1 2021. Equity capital excludes noncontrolling interests. Entity pages exist for every filer in this quarter and for every filer that ever peaked at or above $10.00B: 570 in total. Methodology

The clean panel, quarter by quarter

The filer count sits beside each share, so no share can be read without its denominator.

Source: Federal Reserve, FR Y-9C Consolidated Financial Statements for Holding Companies Tier 1 / assets is summed over reporting filers only; the Tier 1 filers column is that count. Methodology

What this module cannot tell you