[mdasen]

It's not just SVB, but the title is a bit misleading. There's been 22 failures since 2016 and 10 since 2018 and they've been really small compared to SVB. The article has this information so it isn't a misleading article, but damn the title is misleading. The 562 number makes it seem like bank failures are really common.

These failures aren't common, especially of SVB's size. Washington Mutual is the only larger failure at the height of the 2008 financial crisis (47% larger). The next largest was IndyMac, but SVB's failure is 6.5x larger than IndyMac (which also failed during the financial crisis).

As the article shows, there were many years of fallout from the 2008 crisis, but then bank failures became quite rare again.

The author believes that SVB will be acquired given that's what happened to Washington Mutual. The author doesn't talk about Wachovia and they technically were bought before failure, but they were bought as well. However, I'm less sure of this for SVB. WaMu and Wachovia had vast branch and ATM networks allowing Chase and Wells Fargo to hugely increase their footprint. SVB doesn't come with that. Given that SVB has seen a run on its deposits and its reputation shredded, is it coming with enough stuff to be worthwhile? I guess it'll depend on how bad its situation is. When Wells Fargo bought Wachovia, they essentially doubled in size and had the largest branch network in the US. WaMu essentially doubled the size of Chase. In both cases, it opened up huge new parts of the country to the acquiring banks. What does SVB offer? Existing relationships with tech companies which have now soured?

I think calling this "not just SVB" is misleading. SVB really stands alone as an extremely large failure and the only large failure since the end of the 2008 financial crisis. Maybe that will change in the coming weeks or months, but lumping them in with 562 other failures (most of which were a result of the 2008 financial crisis) is really misleading - especially for an article that is actually good.

[FormerBandmate]

SVB is the second largest failure ever. Nobody really cares in finance circles if some tiny bank in Missouri with $5 million in assets fails, people certainly do about this

[lucb1e]

Is that "second largest failure ever" after adjusting for inflation? (I have no idea, I'm not really following these things so I hope it's okay to just ask the obvious)

Edit: randomly spotted that I asked a duplicate question from another subthread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35111958 According to the reply there, it's not adjusted, so the highscore seems a bit meaningless

[Scoundreller]

Can add National City Bank (7th largest US bank in 2008), to the list of banks that didn't "fail", but totally failed through a similar nudged-sale process like Wachovia (4th largest at the time).

[vishal0123]

> These failures aren't common

These are common when inflation rate grows faster than expected. Since 2016 is a small timeframe to find the average.

[TheOtherHobbes]

The point is that there's a constant background noise of failures with occasional explosive peaks.

Although it's not easy to call the exact timing, the same manic depressive financial cycle has been happening for centuries.

Banking is supposed to limit its effects. Somehow - inexplicably, to the constant shock and surprise of economists and the industry - it seems to make them worse.