Bailout panel says repeat stress tests

WASHINGTON: Bank stress tests should be repeated if the US unemployment rate rises beyond levels assumed by regulators in a recent round of examinations that provided relief to markets, according to a report released by a bailout watchdog panel yesterday.

The Congressional Oversight Panel said in the report that the stress tests should also be repeated periodically as long as banks continue to hold "appreciable amounts" of toxic assets.

The monthly report from the panel, led by Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren, said the stress tests, ordered by the US Treasury Department for the top 19 US bank holding companies, used a risk-modeling approach that on the whole was "reasonable and conservative".