Buffett now owns 5% of all US Treasury bills, a larger holding than Fed itself | Hacker News Reader

Buffett now owns 5% of all US Treasury bills, a larger holding than Fed itself

m.economictimes.com

26 pointsmiles10 comments

Note that only short-dated Treasuries are bills.

Can you explain what that means and its implications?

You can buy and sell them just like stocks.

But each one has a maturity date. If you still own it on that date, it goes away and you get your $1000 deposited into your account, which you can use to buy a new one. Or not.

If all you own are the bills, that means that none of them will last a long time before they turn into cash - they aren’t as risky (if you think owning US Treasuries are risky).

A Treasury bill matures in 1 year or less from when it was issued. A Treasury note is more than 1 year but up to and including 10 years. Treasury bonds are anything more than 10 years.

Yup. If someone is unfamiliar with the jargon, the title might make it seem that Buffett owns more Treasury debt than the Fed. He does not.

Isn't he supposed to be smarter than that?

Pretty smart already having significantly reduced his shareholdings before the market tanked.

Is smart approximately the same as well connected? In that case the GOP congress seems very smart, putting in orders just minutes before whitehouse tariff announcments.

No. Buffet had been exiting positions to cash for a few months.

My impression is that he started that process once he got a whiff of the possibility of a second Trump term in combination with the likelihood of an incoming recession (based on historic indicators), no matter who won the presidential race.

That's smart as opposed to well connected / insider trading.

Short term treasury bills, like the ones TFA says Buffett has, mature between 4 and 52 weeks.

Since, within that timeframe, the risk of Trump crashing the stock market is far greater than Trump having the US default on its debt, Buffet is making the smart move.

Time will tell how smart the move proves to be. If the stock market falls a lot he'll look smart.

Also the market looks kind of overvalued. Buffett's a value guy - sell when overpriced, buy when cheap. https://www.currentmarketvaluation.com/

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