The SLOOS report and other notable things

The quarterly Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey yesterday revealed banks that are mostly staying put with their tight lending standards rather than further tightening them even more. For large and mid market banks, about 85% had lending standards that were 'basically unchanged' from the previous quarter. For small banks that category stands at 81.4%. 

Here is the wording from the Fed that summarizes this and also the demand side for loans:

"Regarding loans to businesses, survey respondents, on balance, reported tighter standards and weaker demand for commercial and industrial (C&I) loans to firms of all sizes over the fourth quarter. Furthermore, banks reported tighter standards and weaker demand for all commercial real estate (CRE) loan categories."

"For loans to households, banks, on balance, reported that lending standards tightened across all categories of residential real estate (RRE) loans other than government residential mortgages and government-sponsored enterprise (GSE)-eligible residential mortgages, for which standards remained basically unchanged. Meanwhile, demand weakened for all RRE loan categories. In addition, banks reported tighter standards and weaker demand for home equity lines of credit (HELOCs). Moreover, for credit card, auto, and other consumer loans, standards reportedly tightened, and demand weakened on balance."

A special question was asked of banks of what they forecast for all of 2024 and this was the summary of the results: