Trying to second guess reaction to news during this financial crisis has been a fraught exercise and the U.S. Treasury may have a few advisers playing game theory to assess the impact of results from bank stress tests.

The tests are an attempt to determine which banks can survive more trouble, and who can’t. And how big any balance sheet holes might be. The results are due out on May 4.

If the results look too good, the process will look like a whitewash. Too negative, and it will destabilise still-jumpy markets. Yet showing up problems at one or a few banks could hang them out to dry.

The plan may have been to keep results secret, but that’s unrealistic. Shares in Britain’s Barclays soared last month when its regulator gave it an all-clear. That boosted all the UK sector, but then Barclays was almost alone in the spotlight — its rivals had either already been bailed out or had comfortable capital positions.

In the U.S., there are 19 banks to handle. It could be a PR nightmare and maybe one policymakers should have seen coming. Tim Geithner may end up on the back foot, just as he tried to get ahead of the crisis.

Or he may just opt to play hardball with the weaker banks. At least a transparent process will remove uncertainty from the stronger names.

It’s already on a geological fault line — now the economy of Iceland risks being torn apart by the banking crisis.

But the saga of the North Atlantic island of Iceland does not stop at its own rocky shores.

Riding a wave of cheap borrowing, Icelandic investors spread their interests far and wide, taking stakes in companies as diverse as New York department store Saks, Finnish insurer Sampo and English soccer club West Ham United.

Most famously Baugur, an investment group controlled by entrepreneur Jon Asgeir Johannesson bought up large swathes of Britain’s high street, from the Iceland frozen food chain (appropriately enough) and Hamleys toy store to House of Fraser department stores and fashion group Mosaic.

But what happens now? The cheap credit has dried up; two of Iceland’s biggest banks have been bailed out by the government; credit insurer Euler Hermes has stopped cover for suppliers to some of Baugur’s empire; and West Ham’s Icelandic owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson has already been hit by the collapse of team sponsor XL Leisure.

Gudmundsson chairs Icelandic bank Landsbanki, which has now stopped customers withdrawing money from its British internet bank icesave.

Will the hardy Icelanders weather the storm, or will they be forced to sell into a market where they may struggle to find buyers? A case of shop until you drop, perhaps.