How big is Bank of America? Citigroup? J.P. Morgan?

Third installment in the series.  I was just curious; I suspect the U.S. government would be allowed to fail before these would.

It is hard to say which historical parallels apply, because these entities are both very large FDIC-insured depository institutions and also very large derivatives traders.  So it is not clear whether the right analogy is Continental Illinois / IndyMac / etc. or LTCM / Bear Stearns / etc.  I will just dig out the numbers and you can decide for yourself.

Bank of America has $1.72 trillion in assets, $1.55 trillion in liabilities, and $785 billion in deposits.  They do not bother to sum the column showing notional derivative exposure (turn to page 14), but if you do it yourself, you will find they are counterparty to $38.1 trillion in derivatives trades.  (These numbers are before the “Lynch America Countrywide” merger.  Since it will be an all-stock transaction, just add Merrill’s numbers from my earlier post to get the final figures.)

Citigroup has $2.1 trillion in assets, $1.96 trillion in liabilities, and $804 billion in deposits. They are counterparty to $38.7 trillion in derivatives trades.

JPMorgan Chase has $1.78 trillion in assets, $1.64 trillion in liabilities, and $723 billion in deposits.  They are counterparty to $90.8 trillion in derivatives trades.  (No, really.  Turn to page 60 and check out the last line on “Notional amounts of derivatives contracts”.)  These numbers do include the J. Bear Morganstearns merger.  There are persistent rumors this week that J.P. Morgan is in “advanced” talks to acquire Washington Mutual.  Sure, why not.

If you are unfamiliar with the history of the Glass-Steagall Act (and its repeal), now would be a fine time to look it up.