Using Securities Market Information for Bank Supervisory Monitoring

U.S. bank supervisors conduct comprehensive inspections of bank holding companies and assign them a supervisory rating, known as a BOPEC rating prior to 2005, meant to summarize their overall condition. We develop an empirical model of these BOPEC ratings that combines supervisory and securities market information. Securities market variables, such as stock returns and bond yield spreads, improve the model's in-sample fit. Debt market variables provide more information on supervisory ratings for banks closer to default, while equity market variables provide useful information on ratings for banks further from default. The out-of-sample accuracy of the model with securities market variables is little different from that of a model based on supervisory variables alone. However, the model with securities market information identifies additional ratings downgrades, which are of particular importance to bank supervisors who are concerned with systemic risk and contagion.