Meredith Whitney: Banks, One More Good Quarter Before Bottom Falls Out

10-05-2010 • Businessinsider.com/ & CNBC.com

This is partially a retread of what she said last week, but Meredith Whitney on CNBC says the banks will have one more decent quarter before we start to see new deterioration of credit quality, thanks largely to declining home prices. Mostly, though, she says the bank stocks are "boring" and probably aren't likely to move anywhere. As for what actually matters to banks -- top-line growth -- barring some surprise robustness overseas, don't look for much good to happen. Whitney also commented on how the U.S. middle class is still getting squeezed. "We have to reckon with the fact that a very large portion of the U.S. consumer base, which is really middle class consumers, who were extended credit for the first time in huge swaths, are being debanked from the system, so they're deleveraging. Rich people can borrow like they borrowed before, but they don't need the money... It's that middle group that is actually getting squeezed and getting pushed down in terms of the demographic that is going to put a lot of pressure on the U.S. economy.