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by blindriver 1202 days ago
The head of finance at our company was in line all day this morning to transfer the company's money out of First Republic in South Bay. He said that the parking lot was filled with Ferraris and Porsches all illegally parked because there was no space left.

Monday is going to be a very interesting day. If a buyer isn't found for SVB and possibly First Republic before the open on Monday, it might be a really bad day on the markets.

2 comments

We will see what happens this weekend but if Ackman is right then we’ll see bank after bank go to 0 in the coming weeks and months.

50% of mortgages were written (new + refinanced) between 2020 and 2022. These are all in bonds paying 3% or less. Who is holding these?

If deposits were used to buy these then so many banks are done for. Those depositors want their money back so they can get 4%+ interest now. Everyone is going to start to pull.

Contagion is here.

> These are all in bonds paying 3% or less. Who is holding these?

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Most mortgage originators packaged up the mortgages and sold them immediately to the government.

Yep, my 2021 mortgage was sold before the first payment.
They didn’t “sell them to the government”.

However, the Fed was actually a large purchaser of MBS if that is what you’re referring to.

Okay it's technically not a part of the government, but it's a Government Sponsored Entity with public ownership. All mortgages bought by them have an implied guarantee by the US government.

So they did sell them to "a government-sponsored entity and the US government has an implied guarantee to pay any defaults."

Interesting, the branch on Sand Hill Road was empty when I walked by on Friday. Plenty of tellers, but no customers.