The results, following a 10-week inquiry into the nation's top 19 banks, are set to be released publicly by the Federal Reserve and will rate the institutions' ability to weather various economic scenarios.

At least six of the banks - including J.P. Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and American Express - are due to be labelled financially sound enough to not need extra capital, the Journal said.

The seven others identified by the financial daily are in a more dire situation. Regulators have told Bank of America it needs to fill a US$34 billion capital shortfall, the Journal said. Banking group Wells Fargo needs to come up with between US$13 billion and US$15 billion; auto financing firm GMAC LLC needs to boost its capital by US$11.5 billion; Citigroup requires US$5 billion; and Morgan Stanley needs US$1.5 billion.

The newspaper said Regions Financial Corp. and State Street Corp. of Boston also need more capital, and that the results of the other six banks being stress-tested could not be found.

'Analysts and investors expect several of them to face sizable capital holes,' the Journal said, however.

The Financial Times in London meanwhile reported on Thursday that Citigroup needed to boost its capital by more than US$50 billion, and concurred with the Wall Street Journal report that Bank of America needed US$34 billion.

Any banks notified of capital shortfalls will have until June 8 to develop a detailed capital plan, and until November 9 to implement the plan.

Earlier this week, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said financial markets and financial institutions remain 'under considerable stress,' but said he believed the economy would be able to pull out of its slump later this year. 'We continue to expect economic activity to bottom out, then to turn up later this year,' he told a key congressional panel.

He said key elements of his forecast were assessments that the housing market - at the epicenter of global financial turmoil - and household demand were beginning to stabilise. -- AFP

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