Foreword
In the last few days of last week (week of March 6, 2023), Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) suffered a bank run. On Thursday alone, $42B of deposits fled the bank and on Friday, the bank was taken over by the FDIC. While not one of the big 4 banks, SVB was still a pretty big bank, somewhere in the top 20. In such a climate, where can we keep our money and be safe?
As usual, a reminder that I am not a financial professional by training — I am a software engineer by training, and by trade. The following is based on my personal understanding, which is gained through self-study and working in finance for a few years.
If you find anything that you feel is incorrect, please feel free to leave a comment, and discuss your thoughts.
Definitions
Before we go forward, let’s get a little bit of definitions out of the way. While many people use the words “money” and “cash” interchangeably, they are actually not the same things. “Money” refers to the entire spectrum of assets that can be used to pay for stuff. Depending on the type of money, each unit of it may or may not be worth what it says it is worth.
At one end of this spectrum, is “high powered money” or “base money”, which is money that is generally assumed to be always worth its face value — $1 is $1 is $1. A small subset of high powered money is “cash”, which is generally taken in academia to be actual physical bank notes, coins, etc.
At the other end of the spectrum, is “broad money”, which is money that is only worth its face value over time. For example, a 2year(4) Treasury bond is a form of broad money — it is worth a portion of its face value (depending on current interest rates). edit: However, when the bond matures, it will be worth 100% of its face value (assuming no defaults), regardless of interest rates, so as the bond heads towards maturity, it becomes closer and closer to narrow money.
In high finance, where large sums of money are transferred regularly, broad money is often used to settle transactions, a very stark difference to what retail users are used to, on a day to day basis, where narrow money (cash) is more common.
Silicon Valley Bank
There is more than enough coverage of SVB in the media, so I will just touch on the bits relevant here.
SVB took deposits from a lot of customers and promised the customers that the money is available on demand (i.e. demand accounts). When the money changed hands from the customer to SVB, it is transformed — if you hand over $100 in bills to a bank, you are giving the bank cash, and getting in return a claim on the bank to the tune of $100. Similarly, if you transfer $1m from one bank to another bank, you are exchanging a claim on the first bank for a claim on the second bank, both to the tune of $1m.
The FDIC provides insurances to all bank accounts per account holder to a maximum of $250k. That is, assuming the federal government does not go bankrupt, the first $250k you have in a checking account at SVB is high powered money — it is (transitively) backed by the faith and credit of the US government, and so is effectively narrow money. However, anything above that limit is technically no longer high powered money at all times. Amounts above the FDIC insurance limits is high powered money only as long as the bank itself is operating, because those limits are now a “claim on the bank”, i.e. debt owed to you by the bank.
So, in our first example, the $100 in cash you hand over is high powered money. The $100 in claim on the bank you get in return is high powered money only if it is under $250k at the bank, or if the bank is operating normally.
SVB typically takes deposits from its customers and uses those deposits to invest in US Treasuries, loans to customers, or non-government bonds (1). A large portion of these investments are long term debt, i.e. broad money. And as we know, the value of broad money is generally as a discount to its face value, and is often influenced by interest rates.
And interest rates have been rising, so the value of broad money has been declining. By a lot.
As a result, the mark to market value of SVB’s assets is below the value of SVB’s liabilities (the money it owes its customers). In scenarios like this, if a lot of customers decide to pull money out quickly, SVB will be forced to sell its assets at a huge loss, and since there’s not enough assets to cover all liabilities, if all customers want their money now, some of them will not get all their money back.
Fallout
Because of SVB’s forced insolvency, all customers with balances at or below $250k should get all their money back — the FDIC is promised that the money will be accessible on Monday (3/13) in full. However, because SVB is insolvent (i.e. assets < liabilities), there is a good chance that anyone with accounts more than $250k will lose some of the money above $250k, if they want the money now.
As far as I can tell, SVB did not commit fraud, so the money isn’t missing, it’s just a paper loss due to the change in interest rates. So, with time, as the investments SVB made matures and the debts are paid back, SVB should end up making a profit — that is, assuming all customers are willing to lock up their money until all the investments mature, then everyone should get 100% of their money back, and SVB would have made a small profit as well.
Which is to say, if the customers with accounts more than $250k are willing to wait and let the FDIC slowly unwind the investments, they should be able to get back all their money, though it may take a while, possibly a few years.
The problem is that, currently, you can invest money in short term US Treasuries (one of the safest investments around) for 3.5-5% annual returns, so why would you leave money in SVB for long periods of time just to break even? Also, a large number of customers probably need the money now to make payrolls or pay their own debts, so leaving that money with the FDIC until everything is wound down orderly may not be feasible.
This dilemma is what led to the bank run, and also what likely leads to at least some customers taking a haircut on their money. I have no real insights on how bad the haircuts could be, but I’ve heard estimates from 0-50% (the FDIC is promising to make available at least 50% of money above $250k available on Monday as well).
Crypto
No modern day discussion on money can be done without touching crypto (sadly), and so I will just say this:
SVB, a bank with over $100B went bust in an disorderly manner. Anyone with accounts <= $250k will not lose a cent, but will be inconvenienced for a few days while the FDIC is working to take over. Anyone with accounts greater than $250k will get ~50% of the amounts above $250k back, and may or may not get more back over time.
FTX, Celsius, Voyager, all bank-like crypto entities went bust in the recent past. Pretty much all their customers lost access to all their money, there are various lawsuits taking place to try and recover the assets, and so far it seems like most customers will lose more than 50% of their assets, and that’s after likely a few more years of legal wrangling.
USDC, a stablecoin administered by Circle, a US crypto entity, broke its peg and is now trading at 96c to the dollar, previously having reached as low as 85c. This is simply because for reason I cannot fathom (see below), they decided to keep over $3B (BILLION) of their cash at SVB, and a large chunk of that money is now locked up by the FDIC. This is despite the fact of numerous claims of being “audited”, and that their assets are “safe”. Before the blow up, SVB’s equity base was around $12B, and USDC’s deposit $3B of unsecured assets, earning basically 0% interest, at SVB represents 25% of that equity base, alone. That $3B also represents about 7% of all USDC in circulation before the blowup. How that is “safe” is beyond me.
BTC, the original cryptocoin that did not go bust, lost ~70% of its value in the past year or so. All users maintain access to their assets, though at the new much lower valuation.
Decide for yourself which case you prefer, certainly none of it is good.
Diversifying money
It is frustrating to me, that many companies with large treasuries keep a large part of their treasury(2) in bank accounts. The most basic job of a company’s treasurer (or CFO), is literally to keep the treasury safe. I want to say a “good treasurer/CFO”, but really, any treasurer/CFO that is not a teenager playing pretend should take into account basic things like counterparty risk, diversification of assets, etc.
For both the individuals and the corporate, there are fairly simple things you can do to diversify your liquid holdings to reduce the chance of a serious, crippling financial disaster if some counterparty goes under.
The following is purely US-centric, because I’m based in the US. Also, all the efforts noted below only reduces the risk — there is no way to entirely eliminate all risk. For example, if aliens invade the Earth and just nukes the planet to little bits, there’s really not much any of the following can do to help you. Tough.
Bank accounts vs brokerage accounts
The first thing to note, is that there are 2 types of accounts you can hold liquid assets in. The first is bank accounts, including checking, savings, CDs, etc. These accounts are administered by a bank, and deposits in these accounts represents a claim against the bank (i.e. the bank owes you the money you put in). As noted above, the FDIC provides insurance to all bank accounts up to a limit of $250k.
So, for money deposited into a bank account, as long as you are under the $250k limit, you are pretty safe — the worst thing that generally can happen, is if the bank goes under in a bad way, and the FDIC needs more time to sort things out. In that case, your money may be stuck for a few days (maybe even a few weeks!), but you should get everything back reasonably quickly.
Brokerage accounts, on the other hand, are not insured by the FDIC. Instead, they are insured by the SIPC. SIPC insures all brokerage accounts up to $500k, though only up to $250k of that can be cash. You can get around the $250k cash limit by buying a money market fund (more below), because these are securities and covered up to the $500k limit, or by buying other short term US Treasury ETFs.
Note: When opening a new banking or brokerage account, be sure to check that:
- The bank/brokerage is legitimate. There have actually been cases of scammers pretending to be small banks/brokerages and then running off with the money.
- That the account is insured and under which plan (FDIC or SIPC). Some banks actually have brokerage arms, while some brokerages have bank arms, and it’s not always obvious which arm your assets are put under from a legal perspective.
- Some brokerages provide 3rd party insurance on your assets above the FDIC/SIPC insurance limits. The details vary based on the brokerage, and for the most part, these insurances have not really been tested before. So while it’s better than nothing, these schemes may not end up protecting you 100%.
Now, in general, absent fraud or heavy losses (like SVB), the assets will be at the bank/brokerage even if it fails. So, the FDIC/SIPC will generally be able to return you all your assets, once they have time to untangle the whole mess, even above their insurance limits. The FDIC/SIPC isn’t going to make off with the excess assets once they pay out their insurance limits, don’t worry.
In the case of brokerages, the assets are actually held at a depositary institution (DTCC), which provides another layer of security — the brokerage going down just means that the SIPC needs to talk to the DTCC to get your assets back, and then go through the brokerages’ books to figure out who owns what. Again, this works only if there is no fraud — if the brokerage is secretly selling your assets to buy beanie babies or magic beans, then you’ll likely be out of luck. Note that DTCC only holds securities — cash you hold at your brokerage is generally held by the brokerage itself, or whatever bank arm it has.
Money market funds
If you hold your assets at a brokerage, then you have a separate choice to make — how do you keep the assets? While bank accounts only let you keep the assets in cash, brokerage accounts offer you the option of keeping it in cash or buying securities. If you want to maintain the liquidity of your cash, one good option is to buy a money market fund.
Money market funds are offered by many financial entities, including brokerages. You may have heard of, for example, the Schwab Money Fund (SWVXX), which currently has a 7-day yield of 4.48%, much higher than what most bank accounts offer. Note that just because you hold cash at Schwab, does not mean that your idle cash will be invested in SWVXX — you have to make the conscious decision to buy SWVXX!
In general, most funds (including mutual funds, money market funds, ETFs [exchange traded funds], private equity funds, etc.) have 3 components — there is the fund itself, which is a separate company and separate legal entity. There is a sponsor (also called general partner, administrator, manager, managing partner, etc.) who manages the fund, but does not actually hold the assets (i.e. they are not legally allowed to use the money for their own purposes), and finally there are the investors (also called limited partners, partners, investors, shareholders, etc.). In the case of our example (SWVXX), Schwab is the sponsor, SWVXX itself is the fund, and whoever buys shares of SWVXX are the investors.
Because of the sponsor vs fund setup, and again, absent fraud, the assets in the fund are typically safe even if the sponsor goes bust. In particular, money market funds are, by law, only allowed to invest in certain very safe short-term assets, so the chance of them breaking the buck is extremely low (in all of history, I believe only 2 funds have ever done that). Also, money market funds are not allowed to use leverage, making them even more safe.
When choosing a money market fund, be sure to pick one with reasonable yields (some have low yields because they are administered badly, others have low yields because they are tax exempt, so be sure to pick one that makes sense for you), and be very careful to pick one sponsored by a reputable sponsor. Shifty G may sound like a really cool guy, but I wouldn’t necessarily buy a fund that they are sponsoring.
Money market accounts
One thing to be very careful of, is the distinction between money market funds and money market accounts. Money market funds are separate legal entities as described above, from their sponsors. Money market accounts are typically bank accounts that invest in money market instruments (i.e. the same stuff as money market funds). So while the assets held by the money market accounts and money market funds are themselves pretty safe, money market accounts are subject to the $250k FDIC insurance limit and all the caveats discussed above, instead of the more generous SIPC $500k limits. Not to mention that because money market funds are separate legal entities, they have an additional layer of protection against the sponsor going bust.
Exchange traded funds (ETFs)
If for whatever reason you cannot invest in a money market fund in your brokerage account, you can also buy short term US Treasuries ETFs. ETFs, by their fund nature, share the same sponsor vs fund vs investor legal separation discussed above, so the assets are generally quite safe.
However, because ETFs are traded (money market funds are not traded, they are bought/sold directly with the fund), their price fluctuates. While a money market fund may have paper losses on a day to day basis, the fund generally keeps its per share value at $1, and absent fraud or serious financial issues, you will be able to redeem your shares for $1 per share. ETFs, however, are traded, and so every paper gain or loss is reflected immediately in the share price.
In general, this is fine — for a ETF that invests in very short term US Treasuries, the chance of a permanent loss is small, and the chance of a large gain or loss on a daily basis is also very small. What you’ll generally see, is that the ETF’s per share value goes up slowly over time, and then drops suddenly. Don’t panic — these drops generally are due to the ETFs paying out dividends, so the share price is decreased by the value of the dividend.
Exchange traded notes (ETNs)
If you have a brokerage account, you may have come across something called an ETN. Collectively, ETFs + ETNs = Exchange traded products (ETPs). But other than being exchange traded, ETFs and ETNs are very different beasts.
A note, in finance nomenclature, is a debt instrument — so if someone borrows money from me, one way we can denote that debt is for them to issue a note to me, indicating the amount owed. In other words, notes are a form of broad money.
And that is the clue — ETNs, unlikely ETFs, are generally NOT separate legal entities from their issuers. Instead, an ETN represents a debt that the issue has to you. So, while ETNs are generally subjected to the same $500k SIPC insurance limit, they do not really protect you very well if the issuer goes bust.
I don’t know if there are ETNs reflecting short term US Treasuries, but given the wide availability of money market funds and ETFs, I wouldn’t go anywhere near these ETNs.
WDJBD
Given this wide array of choices, what does JB do?
If you follow me on Stockclubs (disclaimer: I’m an investor in this app), you’ll know that a large chunk (over 95%) of my portfolio on display is in a money market fund. For reasons I may get to in the future, I am currently remaining liquid with some smallish option trades on the side.
That account represents 1 (out of 10+) of my brokerage accounts — In total I have 5 checking accounts, 2 savings accounts and 10+ brokerage accounts. This allows me to keep well below the various insurance limits in each of the accounts, and still remain very liquid for my purposes.
In each brokerage account, excess cash is generally held in a tax advantaged money market fund (in taxable accounts) or a regular money market fund (in tax deferred accounts), while cash in the checking/savings accounts are reduced to only just what I need to ensure I don’t miss my bills.
In effect, I have partitioned my liquid assets into multiple tiers of liquidity (for the computer science folks, think of it as multi-layer caching) — my checking accounts hold the cash that I expect to need to pay my bills due this month, plus a little bit of buffer for unexpected stuff. My savings accounts hold the cash that I expect to need for the next ~6months. The brokerage accounts hold the cash that I expect to need for investments or for the next ~12 months.
This setup gives me flexibility, while ensuring that every dollar of asset(3) is covered by applicable insurance limits. It does make things a little complicated to manage, so a good system of bookkeeping is definitely required (I use Quicken).
Footnotes
- While both loans and bonds are debt, they are not quite the same thing. All bonds are loans, but not all loans are bonds. The difference is similar to the difference between options and warrants or shares and units — bonds, options and shares are types of loans, warrants, units with well defined properties that are enshrined in either contracts or regulatory rules. Because of this standardization, each bond of the same tenure from the same issuer, each option of the same expiry and strike of the same underlying, and each share of the same class from the same company are fungible, and thus can be traded on a public exchange.
- A company’s treasury is its financial assets, managed by a treasurer (or CFO).
- Note that I also have private equity investments, which are not covered by any insurance at all. Can’t have it all, I guess.
- The first copy of this post used 30year Treasuries as an example of broad money. I was later informed that most (all?) academic endeavors generally stop at 2year for the definition of broad money. Obviously, I prefer a definition that is broader, and readers can draw their own conclusions about the narrowness of that thinking in academia. Just kidding… I made a mistake, it’s fixed. ;p