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> $100 million Is that a lot? Seems relatively inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but perhaps a warning of larger moves to come.
by bowmessage 9mo ago
> $100 million
Is that a lot? Seems relatively inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but perhaps a warning of larger moves to come.
- brookst 9mo agoIt’s the symbolism more than direct financial impact. You get 100 moves like this and it starts to become real money.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- nonethewiser 9mo agoIt's not a symbolic move by the pension fund. It's all of the fund's US treasuries.
- marcusverus 9mo ago100 moves of this size (~$10B) would make up 0.1% of foreign-held US treasuries (~$8.5T).
- mmkos 9mo agoI'd say each move like this increases the likelihood of the next one happening, and typically, nobody wants to be the last one holding the bag.
- rhubarbtree 8mo agoAnd the big European nations own ~ 23% of US debt. This is not a one-sided contest. Oddly, it does feel like trump is what europe needed to wake up from its slumber. With new AI / startup funding, the rebuild of their military, and opening up to china this could be the making of the EU into a true superpower. About time. Edit: percentage down from 30% clarify debt
- koolba 9mo agoIt’s hard to put an exact number but it’s on the order of $500-1000 billion daily. So a drop in the bucket, but we’ll have to see if it’s a domino.
- hypeatei 9mo agoIt's not a lot. Multiple countries could offload hundreds of billions and the U.S. Treasury would buy them up immediately (and probably ask the Federal Reserve for some help the next day) I can't find the program name at the moment, but the Treasury plans for situations like this regularly.
- luke5441 9mo agoThe FED can print as much money as it wants. Defaulting this way on US debt won't make the US a more desirable debtor nation.
- nonethewiser 9mo agoI think you are missing the point. The point is it would materialize as inflation instead of debt default. Not that there is no downside risk.
- luke5441 9mo agoInflation is a kind of default, I'm not missing the point. The value of the dollar is based on the promise of 2% inflation of a basket of goods. Breaking that promise is default.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- nonethewiser 9mo agoWell... no. Default is when you can't pay back what you promised. Not keeping inflation under a certain target. Unless words just don't mean anything anymore. In which case, yes. Which could also mean no.
- luke5441 9mo agoIn case you are interested in more than definitions of words: Bond investors do not care if you default by giving them a haircut, doing things like forcefully extending the term to 100 years or lowering the currency value by printing money. In either case they will adjust their future risk premium of US govt. bonds and of course price in future inflation. One might be able to hide the money printing for a while, though, while the haircut is explicit.
- WarmWash 9mo agoAbout $1T is traded daily so it's really more a symbolic move.
- mywittyname 9mo agoTwo people buying and selling the same dollar a trillion time would hit that trade volume in a day. There's also a huge difference between short term and long term bonds. So we need a better metric to evaluate this against. If we look at recent auctions, they typically move around 35-40 billion in 10 year notes and about 25-30 billion in 30 year notes. With the rest being short term. In 2025, the Treasury issued $30 trillion total over 400 auctions. So yes, $100MM is not a lot, but it's still three or so auctions worth of bonds. There's also the downstream impacts of this, as the Netherlands is likely no longer buying t-bonds in any form. And this is just one country.
- louthy 9mo agoWhilst this might be symbolic, money managers don’t tend to do symbolism. Surely it’s more likely that they fear what’s to come: an economic war against the dollar as pushback for the threats from Trump. So selling before the price tanks makes good sense.
- monkeydust 9mo agoNope but its about the sentiment https://ticdata.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/slt_table5.html https://ticdata.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-cent...
- toomuchtodo 9mo agoChina has been divesting for the last nine months, and continues to do so. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-18/foreign-holdings-of-treasuries-dipped-in-october-as-china-sold https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-18/foreign-h... | https://archive.today/4pfum https://archive.today/4pfum
- elicash 9mo agoIt's a pension fund of/for teachers in Denmark. That amount in U.S. Treasuries sounds like an expected size to me.
- lostlogin 9mo agoThe other thread going on this topic says that Europe could sell about $10 trillion. That’s a lot, but also, it’s only a bit over 10 days trading at normal volumes (according to the numbers being discussed in this thread). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46692052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46692052
- Arnt 9mo agoThe normal trading volume isn't really the key. Rather, it's how elastic the price is. Suppose these guys sell 10% of the daily trading volume. How do the traders in the market react? One possibility: Buy at current prices. Another: Speculate that there'll be more sales and the price will drop by a couple of per cent in the coming days/weeks, and delay their buying in order to buy the dip. I'm sure the Americans have laid plans for how to avoid a major Oops.
- JumpCrisscross 9mo ago> How do the traders in the market react? Buy. Because the Fed is about to monetize the debt.
- Arnt 8mo agoMaybe I misunderstand, but that sounds as if you're saying that Treasuries have low risk and middling yield. Is that what you mean? (Half the G20 countries currently have <4% yield on ten-year bonds, the other half more.)
- nonethewiser 9mo agoFor reference, 25-30% of US treasuries are foreign owned. It's still a lot but I think people over-estimate how much of US debt is foreign owned.
- testing22321 9mo agoSure, but if the majority of that foreign owned debt is sold off, it’s very likely there would be a run and everyone would try to sell in a panic.
- Havoc 9mo agoIt’s about the right sizing for a pension fund invest. Most pension fund transactions I see are in roughly that range 50 to 200ish Rounding error on a global scale.