Bad news fills the pages of the Global Financial Stability Report, published on Wednesday by the International Monetary Fund – though the message is more bad than it is new: the financial sector’s dire state is essentially unchanged since the IMF’s previous report half a year ago.

According to IMF calculations, the savage losses incurred by banks since the beginning of 2007 – about $1,300bn – are only the beginning. It expects them to write down another $1,500bn by the end of 2010. Two-thirds of the total is going to come from loan portfolios hit by the recession, rather than the toxic securities which had caused most of the early losses: confirmation (if any were needed) that bad bets on risky assets leave real economic damage in their wake.