Free Republic

... Bank of America (BAC) on Thursday announced it set aside $997 million to protect from loan losses, mainly in the bank's $22 billion energy portfolio. Wells Fargo (WFC) warned of "significant stress" and "deterioration" in the oil and gas space. The problems there forced Wells Fargo to add $200 million in loan-loss reserves, its first increase to this rainy-day fund since 2009. And JPMorgan Chase increased its provisions for credit losses by 88%, mostly due to the oil, natural gas and pipeline business. It was enough to cause JPMorgan's (JPM) first drop in profits since late 2014. ...

Could rapidly falling oil prices trigger a nightmare scenario for the commodity derivatives market? The big Wall Street banks did not expect plunging home prices to cause a mortgage-backed securities implosion back in 2008, and their models did not anticipate a decline in the price of oil by more than 40 dollars in less than six months this time either. If the price of oil stays at this level or goes down even more, someone out there is going to have to absorb some absolutely massive losses. In some cases, the losses will be absorbed by oil producers, but many...