Title: Barry Armstrong talks about how to rate your bank

" And today -- money too much money Monday were a look at the latest economic news in focus on -- this will be a big week for banks and joining us with the very latest now is Gary Armstrong host of money matters. On WPIX. In the financial planner with securities America advisors could to have your -- thank you. So we're having the stress tests on the banks coming out on Thursday we had to bank failures on not Friday night. I don't know which but what things -- there -- smaller banks right."

" Well so Overton savings was -- actually fairly large credit union in Atlanta Georgia. And the reason it's a big deal is. They serviced many other financial institutions in that area it's gonna cost the FDIC about one point four billion to bail outs Overton. So it there there was another bank to these banks have anything in common what's going on. Well Citizens Bank in New Jersey citizens community bank which is different from the citizen's bank that we have here in New England important distinction yup it sure is they also were rated one star by Bankrate dot com and when I would encourage. Listeners and viewers to do is take a look at the ratings of star rating of your bank."

" Okay you can do that at Bankrate dot com we're gonna just show folks real quick where they can do that so you look on the home page is the home page right what do you look and we look for."

" Lower left and you can see it where it's as safe and sound ratings. If you click on that then you can. Then type in the name of your bank and then do some research on it and it will tell you. You know what the star rating is of the bank and more importantly it'll tell you what that -- meeting is indicative of credit goes from one to five stars what does that mean like what what's a five star bank that's a good back but what does it mean about the bank. It means that it solvent and its assets are performing that it's liquid. High end you know if he you know have to worry about that one going under. Some of these other banks -- if this if a bank has a one or two star rating that's a very poor rating you need to be concerned about your deposits. All right are there any one or two disturbance in New England that that matter of concern there are and you know I think that's where. See -- listeners viewers need to go and do their research on these financial institutions because. We are seeing depositors keep more money in the FDIC allows in some of these banks and as a consequence they're losing money we saw that -- Beverly Hills -- solid indymac -- we had more than 10000 depositors lose over one billion dollars because they were well over the FDIC -- so message want to stay under those FDIC limits and that's a 100000 -- per account it's 25200. -- okay -- but that's temporary eight months from now on January 1 2010 might. The limit those from 250000. Down 200000. Why are they reducing it well it was a temporary measure to stop the run on the banks last fall. And so what the FDIC did was come out and say look we're going to shore up these banks and will increase the FDIC limits and that way -- stop people from withdrawing money before literally taking it out now the nineteen major banks we're supposed to learn what the results of the stress tests were later on in the week so -- do you have any sense system which way this is going. It it was a test that. Doesn't have a lot of credibility. Because the factors that they used to identify whether these banks would succeed or not we're very soft. For instance the unemployment rate stands at eight point 5% and we're going to get a new unemployment rate this Friday. I think it'll exceed the rate that they gave this banks for -- all they did on the stress test was sent. We your bank survive if unemployment goes to eight point 9% who can be an eight point 9% this Friday. So I don't know that the stress tests are terribly meaningful. Do you think that the market has already factored in the results of the stress test when it comes to big banks like -- and -- group -- these other big banks I think they have and and that's why we've seen fairly significant rallies during the last two months and we've seen the stock market go from. 6500. Just two months ago to where it stands today. Carrier up quite a bit in a short period of time well we will see what happens on Thursday then on Friday with the unemployment rate very Armstrong thanks much for being here appreciate it thank you."