Government nervous about stress test results

— -- Next week's bank stress tests results are a key part of the Obama administration's economic recovery plan, but the government has big worries about how to deliver the results without hurting the banks' reputation or scaring financial markets.

Investors want to get a lot of details, such as exactly which banks need extra capital, how much capital is needed, and how it will be raised.

The public release of the results will culminate a process initiated in February by the Federal Reserve and other bank regulators that put the nation's 19 largest banks through rigorous tests to determine if they are healthy enough to endure a worsening economy over the next two years and still be able to provide credit to the families and businesses that need it.

For instance, if the government said a bank needed to raise capital but not how much it needed to raise, it would "have us wondering how much trouble the bank is in and that maybe I should get my money out," Wallace says.

However, the U.S. government has never released such specific data about any bank examination for fear that there could be a run on banks with less capital, with depositors pulling their money out and businesses moving to other banks.

"Why release data publicly at all?" says John Sununu, a former U.S. senator now on the Congressional Oversight Panel monitoring the government's bailout program. "It certainly isn't typical for bank examiners to release specific information about the institutions that they examine."

The government has a fine balance to strike and there are indications it is proceeding cautiously. The government gave its preliminary results to the banks on April 24. And after initially saying that the results would be released publicly next Monday, the government backed away from giving a specific date, fanning speculation it would not happen until midweek.