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stbede | 3 years ago
SVB would have passed stress tests because they did what all banks were supposed to do. They invested in "safe" long term treasuries. The only economic environment hypothetical they would fail is, "what happens if there is a bank run and you are forced to realize losses". But what bank can survive a bank run? The Dodd-Frank stress tests don't try to ensure banks can survive bank runs, do they?
When banks invest in the long run, your assets can depreciate in value temporarily to get through short term business cycles. By investing long, a bank's balance sheet will be the average of both assets that aged poorly and assets that aged well. The average should reflect the long term growth of the economy.
The treasuries purchased in the last 2 years depreciated a lot in value and most of SVB's growth happened in the last two years, so there current balances are skewed heavily towards assets purchased right before the interest rate hikes began. If SVB were able to continue operating for say another 10 years, they would be fine even if interest rates never returned to near 0 levels. Additional treasuries would be purchased and the fraction of the balance sheet that consisted of 2020-2022 treasuries would shrink. The rest of the portfolio would probably increase in value. Treasuries purchased today are cheap and have a large upside as rates start coming down, even if rates don't fall all the way to 0. The gains from cheap treasuries purchased towards the end of 2022 and after have potential to dramatically grow in value.
There really isn't any evidence that SVB behaved irresponsibly nor that stricter regulation under Dodd-Frank would have made a difference. If SVB had been inclined to invest in riskier types of investments, Dodd-Frank would have pressured SVB to buy treasuries.
JumpCrisscross|3 years ago
No, they wouldn’t. SVB’s duration would have triggered noncompliance with Fed stress tests and Basel III.
If SVB were solvent, they could have borrowed at the Fed’s discount window.
riffraff|3 years ago
Not all banks are equally likely to have a bank run.
China for example restricts banks from being over exposed to a single sector, so the rapid collapse of an industry does not trigger liquidity issues as badly ad those that hit SVB.
Not dodd-frank or Basel 3 required this tho.