Update: Bailout would be FED loans to all banks at below market interest rates so banks can retire their distressed debt. Taxpayers eat the loss, of course.
SVB was heavily invested in US treasuries held from a few years ago, and because of rising interest rates sold them at a huge loss. At least that was the message on Friday.
“Update: Bailout would be FED loans to all banks at below market interest rates so banks can retire their distressed debt. Taxpayers eat the loss, of course.”
Gas and food prices up ? % overnight? Suddenly the dollars in my wallet feel lighter.
4:30pm ET Update: It’s getting to the point where every new “proposal” or “idea” being thrown about is worse than the previous one (or maybe this is just how the clueless LGBTQ equity-focused Fed is doing trial balloons on a Sunday afternoon. Shortly after the WaPo reported that the Fed is “seriously considering safeguarding all uninsured deposits at Silicon Valley Bank”, BBG is out with a report that the Federal Reserve is also “considering easing the terms of banks’ access to its discount window, giving firms a way to turn assets that have lost value into cash without the kind of losses that toppled SVB Financial Group.”
Such a move would increase the ability of banks to keep up with demands from depositors to withdraw, without having to book losses by selling bonds and other assets that have deteriorated in value amid interest-rate increases — the dynamic that caused SVB to collapse on Friday.
The report goes on to note that as many had expected, some banks began drawing on the discount window Friday, seeking to shore up liquidity after authorities seized SVB’s Silicon Valley Bank, which is precisely why it is bizarre that this is even news: after all, the Discount Window has always been opened, and the fact that banks hate to use it has nothing to do with “ease of access” and all to do with the stigma of being associated with the discount window. Just recall how banks that were revealed to have used the discount window around Lehman’s failure saw accelerating bank runs.
Or maybe the Fed’s thinking goes that while it would be too late to save SIVB, other banks would somehow boost confidence of their depositors by yelling from the rooftops: “Hey, look at us, we are well capitalized: we just borrowed $X billion from the Fed’s Discount Window.”
Needless to say, the mere rumor that regional bank XYZ has been forced to access this “last ditch” funding facility will result in all its depositors fleeing, which is why we once again ask: after “fixing” Ukraine’s Burisma, is that polymath genius Hunter Biden now in charge of US bank bailout policy?