Tag: svb

by Chris MacIntosh

You have probably heard it by now but Silicon Valley Bank went tits up, making it the second largest bank failure in America’s history. I know what it was. The “climate changed,” specifically bonds, which we’ll come to in a minute.

For a moment, it looked like anyone with over $250,000 in the bank would lose their money. Apparently more than 90% of deposits at SVB exceeded this figure. That was the situation until the Fed came in and bailed everyone out over the weekend.

A timely reminder that money in the bank is NOT YOURS.

You are an unsecured creditor in what may very well be an insolvent institution. Some countries don’t even have deposit insurance, and every penny can be taken. Continue reading “Here’s Why SVB Was a Big Warning Sign, not an Isolated Event…”

Guest Post by Greg Pirrong

 

Bank failures tend to come in waves, and we are experiencing at least a mini-wave now.

Banks fail for three basic reasons: 1. Credit transformation: deterioration in borrower creditworthiness, usually due to an adverse economic shock (e.g., a real estate bust). 2. Maturity transformation: borrowing short, lending long, and then getting hammered when interest rates rise. 3. Liquidity transformation combined with an exogenous liquidity shock, a la Diamond-Dybvig, where idiosyncratic depositor needs for cash lead to withdrawals that exceed liquid assets and therefore trigger fire sales of illiquid assets.

The two most notable failures of late–Silicon Valley Bank and Silvergate–are examples of 2 and 3 respectively.

In some respects, SVB is the most astounding. Not because a bank failed in the old-fashioned way, but because it was funded primarily by the deposits of supposed financial sophisticates–and because of the disgusting policy response of the Treasury and the Fed.

SVB took in oodles of cash, especially in the past couple of years. The cashcade was so immense that SVB could not find enough traditional banking business (loans) to soak it up, so they bought lots of Treasuries. And long duration Treasuries to boot. Continue reading “Where Is Occupy Silicon Valley?”