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The U.S. Treasury said Monday there was "no basis" for a report that said its "stress tests" on the health of the nation's 19 top banks showed several were "technically insolvent."
A Treasury spokesman said the department has not yet received the results.
The Turner Radio Network, which describes itself as a "free speech" blog, said 16 of the 19 are "technically insolvent," citing what it said was a U.S. government report. Shares of several banks fell sharply on the report.
"There is no basis for that report; we do not even have results yet," Treasury Spokesman Andrew Williams said.
The Obama administration has said the results would be released on May 4.
Bank stocks, already lower after Bank of America reported disappointing quarterly results and outlook, fell further. The Select Sector SPDR Financial ETF was down 5.4 percent after the blog post was widely disseminated by at least two third-party news services.
After the market open the KBW Bank Index fell 9.3 percent.
The site, http://turnerradionetwork.blogspot.com/2009/04/leaked-bank-stress-test-results.html, is not related to Turner Broadcasting.
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"It certainly did (move the market) for a while. It raised people's eyebrows. People had associated it with (Ted) Turner's broadcast network," said Lou Brien, market strategist with DRW Trading in Chicago.
The blog said "Of the 16 banks that are already technically insolvent, not even one can withstand any disruption of cash flow at all or any further deterioration in nonpaying loans."
"If any two of the 16 insolvent banks go under, they will totally wipe out all remaining FDIC insurance funding," the post added.
The blog was picked up by some third-party news services and cited by another trader for the drop in bank shares.
The Turner Radio Network is described by some monitoring groups as a white supremacist organization.
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