A Stable Period for Banks?

Another week has passed with no failures. While much of this may be attributed to the holiday season, there have been only two regulatory shutdowns since Thanksgiving.  That compares to 10 and 17 during the comparable period in 2010 and 2009 respectively.  Whether this means an end to the high pace of shutdowns remains to be seen.  In the most recent Quarterly Banking Profile, 844 banks remained on the undisclosed list of "problem institutions." This is off only slightly from the 860 banks listed at the same time last year. Are the problems more minor? Are they getting more attention and repairs or are the regulators more willing to wait it out?  We will let our readers decide that for themselves.