There has actually been interesting speculation that the Fed will eventually buy stocks similar to the Bank of Japan over the past few decades [1] but the Fed hasn’t done it yet.
(Edit: Maybe GP was thinking that bankruptcy could lead to debt converting into equity? But even then the Fed’s holding would be indirect and the bond ETF probably wouldn’t hold onto the equity.)
Nah, All these financiers are just getting caught up in semantics trying to ignore the reality of the situation. No the fed doesn't "own" anything, because they haven't "bought" anything.
The fact remains that they've spent over a trillion dollars on junk bonds and they are almost singlehandedly financing the entire economy right now.
How much actual buying and selling have they done? How does that compare to a year ago? How does that compare to the market as a whole? Those are actually relevant, while the government just having some stock is not, so those are what we should be looking at.
Fed did not purchase a single share of HTZ.
They hold two ETFs that include Hertz corporate bonds. Not stocks. Bonds. And not new issues.