[vkou]

Because held-to-maturity treasuries don't have to be marked down unless you start selling them, and because if you hold them to maturity, they will be worth exactly what they say on the tin.

SVB's problem is that it can't hold them to maturity, it has to sell them today at firesale prices, because they already sold everything they have that's not marked held-to-maturity.

[bagels]

The same exact thing can happen to Wells.

[brookst]

35 year old dies BASE jumping.

“The same exact thing could happen to grandma!”

Yes, it could, but it’s not especially meaningful to say that the same thing that happened to X could happen to Y if Y were tbe same as X.

Seriously, read Matt Levine’s stuff about SVB. It was a different bank with different customers, different Fed regulations, different depositors, and a unique asset portfolio problem.

[SilasX]

Great, let’s pick up that metaphor.

35 year old dies BASE jumping. 34 year old BASE jumper says, “yeah he was taking on too much risk — that’s way too old to be BASE jumping.”

56% of assets in long term fixed rate loans is fatal. 26% is also fatal. The latter is not in a position to criticize the former’s excessive risk taking. A 5.6% hole in your balance sheet (20% loss on 28%) is still very bad for an institution that needs to satisfy demand deposits.

[bagels]

The different customers is probably the most important difference really, because it'd be harder to cause a run vs the VCs telling their portfolio to get money out en masse on the same day.