How Bonds Ate the Entire Financial System 41
A very short, very wild history of the market that will shape the next financial crisis. Financial Times: Bonds have long been considered the most boring bit of finance. They occasionally crop up in literature, almost always as a signifier of dreariness. The Great Gatsby's narrator Nick Carraway was a bond salesman and Sherman McCoy in Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities traded them. Bonds have never figured in the popular imagination in the same way as stocks, say, or corporate M&A. There has never been a "meme bond." Ian Fleming chose the name Bond for his spy because he thought it was "the dullest name I've ever heard."
Even so, they have played an integral role in the development of human society, from subsistence farming to the modern era, funding everything from wars and railways to Tesla's electric cars and Netflix. "The bond market is the most important market in the world," says Ray Dalio, the founder of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater. "It is the backbone of all other markets." While the bond market has become larger and more powerful, the importance of banks -- historically the workhorses of the capitalist system -- is subtly fading. The global bond market was worth about $141tn at the end of 2022. That is, for now, smaller than the $183tn that the Financial Stability Board estimates banks hold globally, but much of the latter is actually invested in bonds -- a fact that some US banks have recently rued.
Even so, they have played an integral role in the development of human society, from subsistence farming to the modern era, funding everything from wars and railways to Tesla's electric cars and Netflix. "The bond market is the most important market in the world," says Ray Dalio, the founder of the world's largest hedge fund, Bridgewater. "It is the backbone of all other markets." While the bond market has become larger and more powerful, the importance of banks -- historically the workhorses of the capitalist system -- is subtly fading. The global bond market was worth about $141tn at the end of 2022. That is, for now, smaller than the $183tn that the Financial Stability Board estimates banks hold globally, but much of the latter is actually invested in bonds -- a fact that some US banks have recently rued.
just like the way (Score:5, Funny)
paywalls ate articles
Re:just like the way (Score:4, Informative)
Not a problem: https://archive.is/zDlCm [archive.is]
Yes okay and? (Score:5, Insightful)
What am I supposed to get from this? The article doesn't say that bonds are bad, or that it's a flaw in the financial system (so that title is just misleading). It's an interesting article that could have been written by my History of Finance professor, but... ok and? It's not news, and it's not for nerds (at least not tech nerds, I guess it's cool for finance nerds but this is old information and bonds 101). I don't get it why it's on Slashdot's main page.
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I don't get it why it's on Slashdot's main page.
Website hosting paywalled article paid Slashdot to publish the, ahem, "news".
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One of my employers in the late 90's was Level(3)
Most of my co-workers and myself had received stock bonuses, and they had built in triggers that "could" have made us all rich if the stock performed
I had witnessed the investment in hard capital (networks and data centers) and felt confident enough to put all of my eggs into the one basket
One of my relatives followed up a conversation about the company with the comment, "Watch out, it is a junk bond company"
When the dot.com bust came along, the stock became
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I know nothing about Level 3's bonds, but the exciting thing about bonds is they're senior to equity in a bankruptcy proceeding, even if they're rated as junk. There's a chance you would have gotten paid if you held their junk bonds instead...
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Unsurprisingly, Level(3) bonds where not marketed widely [crn.com], and I was not a holder of Berkshire Hathaway, so I missed out
Life is full of interesting lessons
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Claims to the "Invisible Hand" aside, unregulated bonds have been involved in multiple market crashes, such as the real estate bond market that resulted in the 2008 Recession [investopedia.com]
One extremely well-known facet of high-yield bonds, or junk bonds, is that they are particularly vulnerable to stressed market conditions like those that emerge during a depression or recession, such as the recession of 2008. This vulnerability to stress in the market, as revealed by many studies, is indeed more pronounced in the junk b
Re:Yes okay and? (Score:5, Insightful)
All bonds are are pieces of a loan. You're a big corporation, you're a city or whatever, and you need $100M. Stock offering doesn't make sense (for various reasons), so you get a loan.
Banks can't hold those loans. If the bank held every loan they issued, the lending market would be substantially smaller; I'm not exaggerating by saying it would be about 10% or less. So instead the bank issues the loan, then carves it up into smaller chunks and sells it to investors looking for stability. Then big money investors looking for predictable and stable growth buy those bonds up. Why do this? Because banks don't hold all the money. Insurance companies, pension funds, ETFs all need a stable liquid asset to balance out their risk profile. Bonds open up those sources of capital and make the market, and thus the availability of capital and thus further economic activity, far greater than if a bank opened them up directly. Net result, that company got their loan, AND the bank got the loan off the books, made back their money and some profit, which means they can now issue another loan and do it again. This is how banking works.
The word "shadow" is a loaded term. Bonds are known and tracked. Shadow lending is what goes on in the Chinese system [wikipedia.org], when a cash rich company loans money to another company directly and it's not tracked the way bonds are tracked. Bonds are entirely out in the open.
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So instead the bank issues the loan, then carves it up into smaller chunks and sells it to investors looking for stability.
Don't forget the wise words of bond-expert Margot Robbie: "So, whenever you hear the word 'subprime,' think 'shit.'"
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What am I supposed to get from this? (Score:2)
Savings bonds (Score:3)
Somehow the summary doesn't mention the ubiquitous savings bonds. Not sure if things have changed but when I was a kid we all had one of more of them that a relative gave as a gift when we were little, and when we got older the bond matured and we cashed them in at the bank. If someone wants to go on and on about how boring bonds are, they might mention the boring piece of paper somebody gave you when you were a kid that "will be worth something someday."
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Savings bonds would be a sliver of the bond market, and are not tradable.
I suspect the article is more about how the general public has more direct access to bonds now, and banks are barely the main investors nowadays.
Boring bonds? (Score:2)
>>Bonds have long been considered the most boring bit of finance. They occasionally crop up in literature, almost always as a signifier of dreariness.
I don't know about that. The bearer bonds in Die Hard and countless heist plots seem pretty exciting.
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There are other exciting times in bonds too. When President 44 talked about privatizing the TVA, their bonds plummeted. I was able to scoop up several and turn them around for a profit when Mr. Market realized it would take several acts of a belligerent congress to make that happen.
This leads to the most important thing to know in Finance. "Market efficiency correlates extremely poorly with market sanity."
Bonds have historically been... (Score:2)
...a safe place to park money if you won't/can't invest in property. You don't get huge returns but OTOH you won't risk losing your shirt like when playing on the stock market/crypto/vegas/horses.
Its why they're so popular not only with financial institutions but with private investors.
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There have been three notable bond market crashes in recent history:
- S&L crisis of the 1980s
- The dotcom bubble
- The 2008 financial crisis
Bond prices plummet when interest rate rise (price is the inverse of yield), and there's the risk that the company doesn't make it's interest payments, or return your principal.
You can just as easily lose your money in bonds.
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Re: Bonds have historically been... (Score:3)
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That was also what caused the recent bank failures. The banks had too much in longer-term bonds whose value had dropped because interest rates went up, and with the bank run against them need to seen and could only sell them at a loss at the current market price (guessing around 90% or so of what they paid).
I sold my bond holdings a few years ago when it became clear that the interest rate was likely to rise sometime in the near future. I sold at close to peak bond prices so I must have got lucky enough
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And finance knows jack shit about the biophysical world. Call it even?
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If you want to compare apples to apples in the US versus China, you'll see the US does pretty well. If you want to reach misleading conclusions, by all means continue to compare high-profile projects of one country to hyperlocal regional projects of another.
Try reading Bombardiers by Po Bronson (Score:2)
For a more lively look at Bond market ala Catch-22.
Boring? (Score:2)
Let's make it more interesting. For example, Chase Investments missed the AAA bonds I wanted in '08, and sold me AA-rated bonds.
In Lehman Bros.
How about we hang the former CEO of Lehman? Will that make them exciting?
Beverly Hills Cop (Score:2)
Bonds also played a major roll in the plot to Beverly Hills Cop. Just throwing that out there to go along with the authors mention of The Great Gatsby and Bonfire of the Vanities.
Re: Beverly Hills Cop (Score:1)
Well, sure... (Score:2)
"The Great Gatsby's narrator Nick Carraway was a bond salesman and Sherman McCoy in Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities traded them"
This is not entirely surprising given the latter is basically the former with more verbiage about clothing.
Why does ./ keep posting this paywall shit? (Score:1)