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2nd largest bank failure in U.S. history
SVB collapsed on March 10, 2023 after a bank run driven by unrealized losses on long-duration Treasuries. The Fed created the BTFP (Bank Term Funding Program) within 48 hours. Equities had largely shrugged off the episode within 3 weeks.
Editorial commentary written by ALAN analysts. Figures cited below are analyst-authored context — they are not derived from the chart above and may reflect different windows or sources.
The BTFP was created over a weekend — a speed of response that would have been impossible pre-2008. The lesson: the Fed's crisis toolkit is now fast enough to prevent most contagion.
SVB's assets were high-quality (Treasuries, MBS). The problem was duration mismatch, not bad loans. This distinction matters — credit crises (2008) are systemic; duration mismatches are idiosyncratic.
While the S&P 500 recovered quickly, the KRE (regional bank ETF) remained depressed for months. The lesson: systemic risk was contained but the affected sector paid a lasting price.
Bank-stress headlines are a prompt to check sector concentration and cash placement (FDIC limits, treasury sweep), not index exposure. In March 2023 the actionable risk lived in regional-bank overweights and uninsured corporate cash — both fixable before the event, neither fixable during it.