When we speak of liquidity in the business its not can you sell your asset, its can you sell your asset without moving the price. In 2008 you could sell your M

When we speak of liquidity in the business its not can you sell your asset, its can you sell your asset without moving the price. In 2008 you could sell your MBS at any time, it was just for 10 cents on the dollar, that's not liquidity as we use the term. They sold a chunk of long duration assets for a 1.2B loss because they had to sell them. That's a big loss for the quality of assets they were selling. That is what is mean by hard to liquidate. Its true you can always sell anything. It's can you get a price that keeps you solvent that is the liquidity issue. SIVB wasn't selling 2 and 30 year treasuries, they were selling MBS.