Anyone expecting a definitive statement on the health of the largest U.S. banks from the 2020 stress tests may have come away disappointed.

Capital actions banks announced in the days after the Federal Reserve published results on June 25 were roughly in line with analyst expectations. Wells Fargo & Co. said it would cut its dividend, while most others said they would maintain theirs.

But unlike years past, when stress test participants typically disclosed full-year allotments for shareholder payouts, banks mostly confined themselves to guidance on dividends for the third quarter, sometimes with caveats that things might change before scheduled board declarations. Moreover, banks are set to repeat the exercise later this year, and resubmit their capital plans for review once the Fed issues new parameters calibrated to evolving economic stresses.

To be sure, almost all the banks reported common equity Tier 1 ratios in the first quarter that exceed new requirements due to go into effect in the fourth quarter. But that is not too surprising. The new requirements are tied to losses projected in the stress tests, and, under the old system, payout plans were subject to regulatory objections if banks did not maintain capital levels high enough to absorb comparable losses. The replacement of a fixed capital conservation buffer with the new stress capital buffer largely reflects the integration of constraints imposed by the stress tests into a unified set of capital requirements.

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The Fed's auxiliary "coronavirus event" analysis, which did not disclose individual firm results, is perhaps more telling about the provisional nature of the June results. Under a "W-shaped" double-dip recession scenario, the simulation found that losses would push a quarter of the 33 stress test banks to a CET1 ratio of 4.8% or less. The minimum is 4.5%.

Because of the risks, the Fed has prohibited stress test banks from buying back shares in the third quarter, and capped the amount of money banks can use to pay dividends during the period at no more than average quarterly net income over the preceding year.

Even under baseline expectations, the framework represents a tight squeeze for a number of banks. Alongside Wells Fargo, analysts have tagged Capital One Financial Corp., which posted a $1.34 billion loss in the first quarter because of a large credit provision, as a likely candidate for a dividend cut. The bank did not comment on its dividend when it announced its new stress capital buffer assignment on June 29.

If the Fed keeps the cap in place beyond the third quarter, banks including Huntington Bancshares Inc. and Citizens Financial Group Inc. might also be compelled to cut their dividends, based on consensus Wall Street forecasts and calculations by Compass Point analyst David Rochester.

Citizens Financial said it plans to keep its dividend at 39 cents a share through the third quarter of 2021, in a rare instance of a bank giving guidance beyond the third quarter. It also said it would ask the Fed to reconsider its preliminary stress capital buffer of 3.4%, arguing that the central bank's model understated its earnings power and overstated its credit risk.

In a June 30 note, Rochester called the dividend guidance a "bold move" by Citizens Financial, since "the Fed could use the upcoming stress test in [the third quarter] to demonstrate that banks may need to curtail dividends beyond" the period if the economy appears to be tracking with one of the weaker scenarios contemplated in the special coronavirus analysis.

Huntington said it plans to keep its dividend at 15 cents a share in the third quarter, and that under the severely adverse scenario in the stress tests it "remains one of the best among the regional banks and clearly reflects our expectation for strong relative performance through the cycle."

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was the only bank to report a new CET1 requirement, at 13.7%, higher than its actual CET1 ratio of 12.5% in the first quarter. The bank said it has "a track record of rebuilding capital when necessary" and had raised its CET1 ratio to above 13% as the second quarter closes. It had a CET1 ratio of 13.3% at the end of 2019.

In what qualifies as a relative show of strength amid a growing wave of new coronavirus infections in the U.S., PNC Financial Services Group Inc. said that its board had actually declared its third-quarter dividend of $1.15 a share, in line with its level for the preceding year, which contrasts with more tentative statements by other banks about their intention to do so. PNC's sale of its stake in BlackRock Inc. in May is poised to create a huge gain that would flow into second-quarter net income, and to lift its CET1 ratio to above 11%, well clear of its new 7% requirement.

The bank also said it might restart share repurchases in the fourth quarter if economic circumstances change, although management has said that the first choice for excess capital would be to acquire a competitor that might be motivated by the recession to seek a sale.