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by WalterSear 1186 days ago
> Banks are not overleveraged.

Banks are holding $600+ billion in currently worthless bonds.

https://www.google.com/search?q=620+billion+dollar+bonds+ban...

3 comments

I understand that that's a scary number, but definitions are important.

There is no $600B of worthless bonds. There is $600B of unrealized losses. The bonds are worth something.

Moreover, unrealized losses are not leverage. Banks in 2008 were levered 30-to-1. No such thing now.

No, the bonds are worth something, and the losses can narrow by a lot if they're allowed to hold to maturity, deposit interest rates rise slowly enough and if broad interest rates drop some time on the future. The risk that they can't narrow is indeed real and whether to backstop that is a source of contention here.
Unfortunately we are stuck living in the present where the bonds are worthless and not the future.
"slightly less valuable than expected" is not "worthless"! The hyperbole bubble is getting exhausting. People really want to talk a crisis into existence. Are they bored?
If you happen to be holding any "worthless" Treasury bonds, I would be happy to take them off your hands for $0.10 on the dollar.
I bet the banks would jump at the chance to turn a $600 billion hole into a $540 billion hole.
Some of them are even holding bags of rocks.[0]

[0] https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-news-today-03-...