Savings and loans taken over by federal regulators may have suffered bigger losses in the government securities market than previously believed, according to a study by the Resolution Trust Corp. The study, released by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), expanded the scope of a similar study done for Congress last year before the Salomon Brothers Inc. government bond-trading scandal erupted. In the first study, the RTC, the federal agency in charge of the savings-and-loan cleanup, found that at least 37 of more than 500 failed S&Ls seized by regulators suffered estimated losses totaling nearly $640 million in government securities transactions. The latest study, widened to 632 institutions, found 238 additional instances of S&Ls losing money because of speculation in the government securities markets.
