U.S. banking conditions improved year over year, but the gains masked sharply different balance-sheet trends across bank sizes and across the distribution of institutions.
43.7% of banks improved year over year — a plurality, not a majority. 29.2% deteriorated.
Upper-quartile banks are historically strong — p75 at the 91.4th percentile of history, while p10 sits near the middle at the 54.8th.
Weak fundamental standing and funding vulnerability are different populations — only about a quarter of the weak tail (27.2%) overlaps the elevated-RVI watch zone.
Adverse pressures did not unusually cluster within the same banks beyond what individual pressure-family rates would imply.
Bars step cumulatively from zero to the cohort composite. Asset Quality deterioration is concentrated below $10 billion, where it is claimable; larger banks show a different balance-sheet pattern. Compared within cohort, never pooled. Dashed bars are diagnostic-only contributors — displayed for completeness, not claimed as findings.
BankAtlas Composite Score, 2003–Q2 2026. Higher = stronger. Historical ranks based on prior quarterly observations. Q2 improved across the distribution year over year, but historical strength is concentrated toward the stronger end of the banking system.
Issue 2 will re-test 8 pre-registered findings from Q2, including Asset Quality deterioration below $10 billion, capital divergence by size, RVI turnover, weak-tail persistence, and whether adverse pressures begin to stack within the same institutions.
Each finding states in advance what would confirm it and what would reverse it — written before the Q3 data exists. That makes Issue 2 a test rather than a re-reading.
BankAtlas analyzes U.S. regulatory banking data using a proprietary risk framework spanning more than two decades of history. Q2 2026 analysis covers 4,296 institutions. Grades and scores are proprietary analytical measures, not credit ratings or investment recommendations.