On: US banks have $620B of unrealized losses on their ...

[rgbrenner]

A whole 2.7% of assets? How will they ever survive. Hopefully the fed is readying a bailout soon. /s

[danielmarkbruce → rgbrenner]

It's worse than it seems - they are levered on average at 10-1. So they've lost almost 30% of their equity in aggregate.

Put another way - if they lose 10%, they are finished.

[ceejayoz → danielmarkbruce]

> they are finished

You think the US government is gonna go "whoops, our central bank failed, and we aren't willing to pay a fraction of the cost of the F-35 program to bail them out"?

[danielmarkbruce → ceejayoz]

Not central bank. The article is about banks, the assets and losses are on the balance sheet of the banks. The comment is about banks, not the fed.

[AmVess → rgbrenner]

The Fed is 42 billion in the hole. Rather alarming if one takes a moment to think about it.

[rgbrenner → AmVess]

But then if you take another moment to think about it a bit more, it turns out that financial services is 20% of the market cap of the s&p500; 20% of all corporate income; and 7.5% of total GDP in a $20+ trillion economy.. so maybe 42B isn't as much money as it seems.

[thecodedmessage → AmVess]

Can you explain why it’s bad if a central bank is in the hole? Like, what bad practical effects does it have?

[ceejayoz → AmVess]

Oh no, we’d have to add 0.13% to the national debt to bail them out.

[cma → AmVess]

$120 per American, really alarming?

[thechao → cma]

A fine morning at Starbucks for the family!

[AmVess → cma]

It isn't alarming that the institution in charge of money is in the hole by a huge amount? The dollar amount isn't the real issue; but rather that they've done such a poor job at it.

[ceejayoz → AmVess]

It's only concerning if you (incorrectly) think the Fed's primary purpose is to make a profit.

They sent $109B to the Treasury in 2021, and $58B in 2022. Some years being a down year isn't shocking.

[cma → AmVess]

No, because that amount isn't huge at all.