If you do things the right way, in the long run you will get positive results.  But if you do things the wrong way, in the long run you will get negative results.  Our banks are the beating heart of our entire economy, and unfortunately they have been doing things the wrong way for a long time.  As a result, the entire system is being greatly shaken.  Loans are starting to go delinquent at a frightening pace, we have seen endless “banking glitches” in recent months, tens of thousands of banking employees have already been laid off, and U.S. banks are sitting on hundreds of billions of dollars of unrealized losses.  Sadly, a lot more chaos is on the way.  As small and mid-size banks fail, they will get gobbled up by the big boys.  Of course the big boys are scrambling to survive too.  In fact, it is being reported that JPMorgan Chase will close a total of 159 local branches by the end of this calendar year…

In 2023, JP Morgan Chase has or will close 159 branch locations across the United States. The banking giant is not alone in its decision to scale back its physical presence as banking moves online; Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citi Bank have announced closures at similar scales that will continue into 2024.

Bank of America is not far behind.

We are being told that it will permanently close more than 100 local branches by the end of 2023…

Bank of America is the second largest bank in the United States, and this year, the financial giant has announced that it will close up to 138 locations. To date, 95 branches have been closed this year, and 15 more are to shutter by the end of the year. The remaining locations are planned to close in 2024, meaning that the trend, common among nearly all of the big banks of shutting local branches will continue.

At this point, just about everyone is closing branches.

In addition to laying off workers, this is one of the measures that banks can take to try to save some money.

As I discussed the other day, in just one week in November U.S. banks submitted filings to permanently close another 64 branches.

Of course this “avalanche” of branch closings didn’t just start recently.  In 2022, our banks shut down more than 3,000 branches.  We have never seen anything like this before, and everyone agrees that more branch closures are coming in 2024.

But many banks have no choice.  Right now, U.S. banks are sitting on an absolutely colossal mountain of unrealized losses.

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