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The Federal Reserve said Thursday that its 2016 stress tests of 33 bank holding companies show an improved ability to lend during recessions and improved credit quality compared with the year before.

The numbers are the first half of the results from the 2016 stress tests; the second half will be released next week.

This was the sixth round of stress tests run by the Fed since 2009 and the fourth round under the Dodd-Frank Act. The 33 firms represent more than 80 percent of all domestic banking assets. In this year's tests, the most severe scenario resulted in hypothetical loan losses totaling $385 billion during the nine quarters tested. The scenario would include a global recession with a U.S. unemployment rate increasing 5 percent, accompanied by a heightened period of financial stress, and negative yields for short-term U.S. Treasury securities.

"The changes we make in each year's stress scenarios allow supervisors, investors, and the public to assess the resiliency of the banking firms in different adverse economic circumstances," Fed Board Governor Daniel K. Tarullo said. "This feature is key to a sound stress testing regime, since the nature of possible future stress episodes is inherently uncertain."

In testing under the hypothetical "severe" stress scenario noted above, the firms' aggregate common equity tier 1 capital ratio, which compares high-quality capital to risk-weighted assets, would fall from an actual 12.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015 to a minimum level of 8.4 percent. Since 2009, these firms have added more than $700 billion in common equity capital.

The bank holding companies were also tested under a hypothetical "adverse" scenario, which features a moderate recession and mild deflation in the U.S. In this scenario, the aggregate common equity capital ratio of the 33 firms fell from an actual 12.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015 to a minimum level of 10.5 percent.