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>SVB didn't even take undue risk. Not hedging in ANY way against interest rates going up was explicitly undue risk. EVERY bet must be hedged. SVB said "well su
by mrguyorama 3y ago
>SVB didn't even take undue risk.
Not hedging in ANY way against interest rates going up was explicitly undue risk. EVERY bet must be hedged. SVB said "well surely the government will never raise rates, so we can lock in money for 10 years to gain a small amount of extra profit", ignoring that their depositors were all highly aligned and literally friends that would act in concert.
You don't have every dollar you own locked up in a 7 year CD right? Because you're smart enough to know liquidity has non-trivial value! SVB purposefully ignored that in search of a slightly higher profit. It was trivially stupid.
>but what SVB was doing wasn't irresponsible with the knowledge they had at the time.
If you're a bank, and you think you've found a magic money glitch that requires no hedging, you are wrong. They weren't doing arbitrage, they were gambling.