Powell has been pumping rates for over a year. Why didnβt SVB convert their long term debt to shorter term earlier and waited till now? Doesnβt make any sense.
Discussion
I think they probably expected a recession by now, in which they would offload their longer duration debt when rates reset lower (I think all these banks are in the exact same boat, just a couple steps behind SVB).
SVB dumped their bonds now and took a 1.8B loss, who took the other side? If rates continue to go higher, wouldnβt they be faced with the same problem? Why would a 1.8B hole trigger a bank run on a bank with 200B in assets?
The person taking the other side - gets a discount.. there's lots of money out there believe it or not - but not a lot of opportunities to deploy it (bitcoin isn't an opportunity as it's the enemy of the current administration).
Greed
Asleep at the wheel...
Hard to sell at a loss. So they probably thought they could manage to hold the long dated bonds to maturity. But then the depositors came asking for cash and they had to realize the losses.