Swedish Alecta has sold off an estimated $8B of US Treasury Bonds

1/21/2026 at 6:14:56 PM

US 10- and 30-year bonds are trading at their highest yields (lowest prices) since, uh, August/September 2025. Or in historical context, rates that were more common before 2007 and the ZIRP period.

by loeg

1/21/2026 at 7:01:52 PM

Which explains why the DOJ is going after the FED for not lowerign interest rates. They assume ZIRP will solve their problems, but that just kicks the can down the road, and it won't go far this time. Even Japan, which was our model for yield curve control has abandoned that theory.

Bunch of dumb people running the room and no experts.

by downrightmike

1/21/2026 at 7:59:52 PM

The only goal right now for a lot of people in Washington is to make "Number Go Up" ahead of November. So far the current strategies haven't been working, so they're going to have to get a lot more aggressive. Medium and long term consequences are a problem for the future.

by hadlock

1/22/2026 at 2:28:48 AM

Skirting close to or breaking the law has substantially worse outcomes in divided government. The GOP paranoia about November smacks of a belated realization that there might be consequences for things that were done.

by ethbr1

1/24/2026 at 5:06:14 AM

They are going to pass the save act, which disenfranchise is something like 60% of women voters in the United States. This will effectively invalidate a significant portion of Democrat voters right before the election, and before they were able to change their data

by dripdry45

1/22/2026 at 4:24:04 AM

I mean, they've gerrymandered the country so much it's nearly impossible... good luck to the ones with very "efficiently" cracked districts.

by scoofy

1/22/2026 at 6:23:48 PM

Gerrymandering (on any side) isn't going to decrease unless the federal government begins enforcing it under Constitutional and civil rights law, with Supreme Court blessing.

Among its many flaws, the Constitution should have had a "elections run by an objectively fair method to each citizen" caveat before giving states the right to run their own elections.

But that would have been pretty progressive for the late 18th century...

In my dream world, we'd put enforceable boundaries on how much gerrymandering is acceptable via statistically stable methods (e.g. efficiency gap calculations).

The easier solution would have been parliamentary-style proportional party list representation, but I'm not sure the fairness benefits outweigh the "not being able to vote for your individual" drawbacks.

by ethbr1

1/21/2026 at 7:27:58 PM

Don’t think they’re dumb, their goals are just shorter-term, they need to juice the numbers before the next election cycle.

by IrishTechie

1/21/2026 at 9:11:44 PM

> Even Japan, which was our model for yield curve control has abandoned that theory.

Common please: Japan's rates have hovered around zero for about 30 years. Three decades. Japan has never been the model for yield curve and the theory they "abandoned" has been recently abandoned, after three decades.

by TacticalCoder

1/21/2026 at 10:22:00 PM

Did you skip 2020? And this was before the pandemic https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-new-tools-of-monetary...

by downrightmike

1/21/2026 at 10:19:27 PM

Dumb people? Those dumb people made billions of dollars with that scheme and dumped the bill on the shoulders of people - like you. Who's the dumb one...

by zrn900

1/21/2026 at 10:21:39 PM

Corrupt dumb people

by downrightmike

1/21/2026 at 6:57:50 PM

That all has way more to do with Japan’s bond issues and the carry trade unwinding. 8 billion will have caused a tick, but that’s nothing.

by hopelite

1/21/2026 at 6:49:38 PM

Some additional context: on March 10, 2023, which is the date that Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, 30 year treasuries had a yield of 3.70.

Today the yield is ~4.9.

Now, in 2026, how many institutions are "picking up pennies in front of steamrollers" ?

by rsync

1/21/2026 at 5:48:57 PM

What are some realistic alternatives to US markets here? Selling is one thing, the question is what to buy instead? I mean, everyone starting to buy european instead would be great for stock prices, but it wouldn't make the underlying assets more valuable, right?

by zppln

1/21/2026 at 6:38:53 PM

If you divest US bonds, you would probably put them into bonds from other nations (and corporate bonds from non-US companies), easiest thing is to try to find a index to track; Vanguard's BNDX tracks the Bloomberg Global Aggregate ex-USD Float Adjusted RIC Capped Index (Hedged).

In a mark to market world, the value of a bond is its acquisition cost, so buying bonds enough to raise prices increases their value, but not their coupons or their face value. It's hard to make sense of the value of a sequence of payments, it's reasonable to consider the present value and the market price is an easily justified present value for a bond.

Selling bonds and buying stocks is a different thing altogether. Selling US stocks and buying EU stocks wouldn't change the value of the underlying assets, however, having an increased stock price does have benefits for the company when issuing new shares or bonds.

by toast0

1/24/2026 at 5:10:05 AM

Large institutions have been moving in this direction for about a year. I just put together a fairly more stable and diversified portfolio that is effectively only about 15% in the US. It involves some short-term private equity, lots of commodities, European cyclicals and financials, some small Deep value, energy and climate change infrastructure is on solid ground and being well funded around most of the world… they really are plenty of bright spots and lots of good advice out there, even from public letters from places like Van Eck, Piko, GMO funds, and others.

There are a number of very important categories to avoid, like convertibles, but overall it’s quite possible if you have a little bit of acumen with investing.

by dripdry45

1/24/2026 at 5:10:44 AM

Oh, and a bunch of foreign currency baskets and emerging markets debt denominated in the local currency

by dripdry45

1/21/2026 at 8:07:35 PM

Eurobonds. It may actually happen if this continues. But given the speed of the usual EU decision process I would not be surprised if it takes them longer than the current US administration to finally agree on the various terms. And that's good for Europe in multiple ways.

https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/eu-budget/e...

In the meantime: German, Dutch, UK (technically not EU), Swiss, Nordic paper is also a good substitute and regardless all you really want to do here is not to hold an asset that may well become a liability so in that sense almost anything is better.

by jacquesm

1/21/2026 at 9:34:27 PM

Eurozone has a looming debt crisis. ECB is actively capping the yields for countries bonds from Spain and Portugal which are showing stress signals. This will not end well for ECB this time around if they end up something like 2012.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-185202466

by robinsoncrusue

1/21/2026 at 9:46:14 PM

You're going to make a lot of money then by shorting EU stocks, right?

by jacquesm

1/21/2026 at 11:36:53 PM

Stock market is different from bond market, but bond market everywhere is showing stress signal. Just look at Japan. But yeah, eventually it will spill in stocks.

by robinsoncrusue

1/22/2026 at 4:25:53 AM

Fixed income are just the weirdest markets. Like, the most boring and the most insane... kind of at the same time.

by scoofy

1/21/2026 at 8:29:00 PM

Swiss bonds are super safe, but they have ~0 interest rate and so you lose out on inflation.

by marcyb5st

1/21/2026 at 10:06:46 PM

Well, CHF gained 12% on USD YoY, so I guess that it ends up being much better yields than US treasuries.

by vdupras

1/21/2026 at 10:33:52 PM

That is fair. Sorry, colored by the fact that I actually live in Switzerland and so investing them in Swiss treasuries is like keeping the cash for me.

by marcyb5st

1/21/2026 at 11:22:29 PM

That's an easy mistake to make. When you're looking internationally you always have to take the rates into account. For you it doesn't matter, but a lot of parties are investing in Swiss treasuries exactly because it is like keeping CHF. which tends to do well relative to their own. The long term USD vs CHF rate works out strongly in favor of holding CHF.

by jacquesm

1/21/2026 at 5:52:03 PM

Just needs to be more valuable than the US bonds that are 100% gonna tank I guess

“I don’t need to outrun the bear. I just need to outrun you. “

by ares623

1/21/2026 at 6:01:42 PM

Sovereign debt of a more politically stable nation state or other monetary union, if you are investing at these levels. If you're an individual, you have more options, although there will be fierce debate about the risk profile (as US Treasuries were historically considered to be risk free).

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=449401

by toomuchtodo

1/21/2026 at 6:05:32 PM

The disciple went to his master and said "Master, I am considering stopping doing a thing and starting to do a different thing. But I am not certain what the new thing is that I should be doing".

The master turned to the disciple and said: "A better thing"

The disciple was enlightened.

EDIT: Oh damn it. The entirety of the comment was "Sovereign debt of a more politically stable nation state or other monetary union" at the time I replied. Ah well.

by arjie

1/21/2026 at 6:11:21 PM

Which nation states might you consider more politically stable than the US, even now?

by loeg

1/21/2026 at 6:24:01 PM

Almost every 1st world country has a more predictable and honest leader right now

by Braxton1980

1/21/2026 at 6:28:39 PM

You've answered a different question than the one I asked. I think the US will continue to pay its debts, under this president and the one who replaces him in three years.

by loeg

1/21/2026 at 9:15:21 PM

The point is that it doesn't matter, the US is toxic for the next foreseeable twenty years, and for Europe as a whole, a threat and an enemy. We'd be stupid to keep funding your economy, no matter how much money it makes back. Enemies are to be taken down.

>under this president and the one who replaces him in three years.

The levels of optimism in this sentence are off the charts. The US's political systems are so weak, fragile and compromised that you don't even know if you're going to hold proper midterms or if you're going to get a civil war, the current president is threatening the FED, but sure, debts are going to be paid when it's ran by the dude that managed to bankrupt casinos.

by well_ackshually

1/21/2026 at 7:02:35 PM

The US will pay its debts in USD and the German government will pay its debts in Euros. If you think the euros to dollar exchange rate will be better in the future, it can easily dwarf the difference in interest rate between the bonds.

by HWR_14

1/21/2026 at 7:12:38 PM

How does that practically work out in selecting bond investments though? Betting on receiving euro coupon payments would look like buying BNDX over BND. But in the last year, while the Euro appreciated ~12% over the Dollar, $BND is up ~3% while BNDX is down ~1%.

by reducesuffering

1/21/2026 at 7:43:38 PM

International Bond ETFs are normally dollar-hedged. There are some unhedged ones that are in the local currencies and better at tracking foreign exchange rates. e.g. BWX is an unhedged international treasury fund.

by randerson

1/21/2026 at 6:38:00 PM

This president has publicly mulled not paying its debts.

It's time to stop magical, wishful thinking about how you want the world to be, and deal with the world as it is.

by vkou

1/21/2026 at 6:39:10 PM

The president can mull whatever he wants; he doesn't have the authority to not pay.

by loeg

1/21/2026 at 6:40:17 PM

He can mull all he wants and half the time, that mulling turns into reality.

In practice, he has the authority to do anything he wants. Who is going to stop him? You? His pets in Congress? JPow's private hit squad? Clarence Thomas?

The first rule of neo-America is that you're playing the Chairman's Game[1], and there are no more rules. Its counterparties should bargain with it accordingly.

---

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_(card_game) [2]

[2] The Chairman's Game is a game invented in a university. Some say it was invented at Stanford, while others say it was invented at MIT. It was inspired by a formerly prominent, but now somewhat disgraced Chinese politician that was famous for coming up with a lot of interesting new rules for his subjects to follow, and enforcing those rules very harshly, without necessarily informing those subjects what those rules were. It's a little bit like Uno, a little bit like Crazy Eights, and the only thing that I can tell you about it is that there are times, when playing this game, when it is not a good idea to speak.

by vkou

1/21/2026 at 9:48:04 PM

> Who is going to stop him? You? His pets in Congress? JPow's private hit squad? Clarence Thomas?

Yes, ultimately Clarence Thomas and his eight friends, or Congress.

by loeg

1/21/2026 at 11:08:33 PM

The same Congress that failed to convict him, twice, and the same Clarence Thomas that has ruled him to be above the law?

If you're waiting for Republicans to save you from his madness, you'll be waiting for a long time.

by vkou

1/21/2026 at 7:00:55 PM

What a ridiculous statement given everything we've seen in the last year. The president doesn't have the authority to withhold funding to the states, or to deploy the national guard (absent an emergency), or to use the Justice Department as his personal law firm, and yet... All he needs to do is have the appropriate person fail to do their job and nothing gets paid.

by jshier

1/23/2026 at 4:33:11 AM

You can't be serious, Trump doesn't care. He can do whatever he wants, drag it through the courts for a long time. If he loses try another method

by Braxton1980

1/21/2026 at 10:31:34 PM

The risk for credit default is very close to zero, but the risk for renegotiated contract terms is not zero. That's what the whole Mar-a-Lago Accords was about. It is a strategy that describes in detail how that would be executed. The likeliness for which is up for debate, of course, but it's certainly not a risk free asset.

Add to that the rampant debt increase over many decades and zero political will to rectify the situation, which is why the rate of return is so much higher than in more politically stable countries such as for example Switzerland, Germany or Sweden.

by xorcist

1/23/2026 at 4:31:34 AM

1. Trump has constantly stated how he believes the US has spent money and lives doing things for the rest of the world. He just did it with Canada this week saying "Canada exists because of the US'.

2. The majority of his followers have some level of cult like adoration for him and therefore he isn't worried about losing support for radical actions.

3. Republican voters have been told to not trust the experts, news, or the opposing political party which eliminates all outside sources of information. This allows them to make claims about our debt or why we shouldn't pay it and many of these voters won't get opposing views.

4. Trump wants a massive increase in spending for the military and has cut taxes. While at the same time Republicans ran on the high debt. Not paying it by claiming it's invalid solves that.

by Braxton1980

1/21/2026 at 6:14:18 PM

https://www.cfr.org/trackers/cfr-sovereign-risk-tracker

https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile...

by toomuchtodo

1/21/2026 at 6:16:58 PM

> The CFR Sovereign Risk Tracker can be used to gauge the vulnerability of emerging markets to default on external debt.

Sort of definitionally, nothing in that list is going to be more politically stable than the US.

In the second link, the author gives slightly lower country risk premiums (0% vs 0.2%) to Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, and Switzerland. Setting aside the practicality of these recommendations (how much debt does Liechtenstein issue? or Germany, for that matter?): in a world where the US is unstable, it's hard to imagine Canada being risk-free.

by loeg

1/21/2026 at 6:28:42 PM

Nothing is risk-free. But Canada is certainly more politically stable than the US.

by epgui

1/21/2026 at 6:35:56 PM

Canada is more internally stable, but is less externally stable, given that invasion and occupation is on the table.

Canada needs to pursue further armament (Carney is pursuing a doubling of its defense budget) and training in asymmetrical warfare.

by vkou

1/21/2026 at 6:37:39 PM

What makes you say "certainly," especially in the hypothetical scenario where the US is unstable? Canada has a relatively much shorter history as an independent nation. Canada heavily benefits from its southern neighbor, and has a host of domestic economic issues (low wages, high housing prices; whatever the farmers are on about) that could cause instability as well. I think Canada is reasonably stable, I just quibble with "certainly" and "more" politically stable as compared with the US.

by loeg

1/21/2026 at 9:18:43 PM

Your "long history as a nation" mostly means you have a flawed constitution, no counter powers, a broken political system and absolutely _zero_ attempts to fix it.

There's a reason proper countries have had 5+ constitutions and keep changing them.

by well_ackshually

1/21/2026 at 7:00:25 PM

Canada will not invade allies and will adhere to the rule of law. Their forward looking economics are more favorable as they strengthen ties with China and Europe. By decoupling from the US, their economic risk declines, and their sovereign debt risk is downstream of that.

by toomuchtodo

1/21/2026 at 8:24:53 PM

Under current conditions, though, they may be invaded and/or annexed. That's a risk.

by AnimalMuppet

1/21/2026 at 8:56:48 PM

That's one way to invite asymmetric warfare[1] on the mainland - the border with Canada is something that mostly exists on maps.

1. As recently wargamed by the Canadian military.

by overfeed

1/21/2026 at 9:55:15 PM

I'm remembering an old painting, and briefly wondered if we'd see a repeat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_President%27s_House_b...

Then I remembered the building works, and thought "If it happened, how would anyone even notice?"

by ben_w

1/22/2026 at 3:34:22 PM

This has nothing to do with Canada's political stability.

by epgui

1/21/2026 at 8:55:20 PM

>>especially in the hypothetical scenario where the US is unstable?

How does it feel to bury your head in the sand so hard that you can't see what's happening around you?

by gambiting

1/21/2026 at 9:57:16 PM

Do you think if you just sneer hard enough, it makes your viewpoint true or persuasive?

There are probably two or three different commenting guidelines this runs afoul of: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

by loeg

1/21/2026 at 11:19:29 PM

You are arguing as if nothing material in the US has changed while at the same time arguing “be more polite towards my ignorance|avoidance of the situation.” It comes across as arguing in bad faith.

The US can no longer be trusted based on the actions of this administration. Other countries are pragmatically and reasonably adjusting accordingly, very publicly. There are other options besides the US from an economic, trade, investment, and defense ally perspective. These are facts. Whether you believe them is a choice.

by toomuchtodo

1/22/2026 at 3:07:17 AM

Citation:

Europe is learning that a ‘deal’ with Trump doesn’t exist - https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/21/business/trump-davos-greenlan... - January 21st, 2026

by toomuchtodo

1/22/2026 at 1:00:46 PM

Europe isn't learning anything. Europe is dreaming to be a great empire, while licking the butt of another great empire.

by hulitu

1/22/2026 at 1:57:51 PM

...what? That literally makes no sense. "Europe" is not a country. "Europe" does not dream of being an empire, because it has no cohesive governing body or even identity as a whole - maybe France or UK dream of being empires but collectively? Does Slovakia or Portugal dream of being empires?

That is such a naively simplistic view of how the world works it reads like it's straight from a Daily Mail or Fox News headline, which always say "Europe does X" - like, who is Europe? Are they in the room with us now?

"Europe is learning" should say - (some) European states are learning, and they are learning that you cannot negotiate with convicted criminals and fascists - they will betray you on a whim because they do not answer to anyone, not even themselves.

by gambiting

1/22/2026 at 4:07:40 PM

[flagged]

by betty_staples

1/22/2026 at 4:14:14 PM

>>Europe has fantasies of being a mighty empire

Again, is this Europe in the room with us? Or have you eaten too much American propaganda that treats "Europe" as if it was one country? Maybe it's time to lie down my dude.

by gambiting

1/21/2026 at 10:54:08 PM

No I just think this is so obvious by reading literally any news website for 5 minutes that I can only conclude that someone saying it's "hypothetical" is either acting maliciously or they are actually ignorant of what's going on.

by gambiting

1/21/2026 at 6:45:41 PM

All historically-stable Western nations seem to be subject to the same influences that brought us Trump, though.

They (we) are all under attack.

by CamperBob2

1/21/2026 at 7:28:27 PM

On the first page, I see 9 countries which it claims have a default risk of 50% or higher in the next 5 years. Which means a probability of at least 1-0.5^9=0.998 that at least one of them will default.

That's a crazily high confidence prediction. What is their track record? What did they predict 5 years ago and how did those predictions bear out?

by abdullahkhalids

1/21/2026 at 9:53:19 PM

To be clear, those countries are: Argentina, Belarus, Ghana, Pakistan, Russia, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Ukraine, and Venezuela. It would not be shocking if any of those countries defaulted. Also: your math assumes events are independent, but at least the Belarus/Russia/Ukraine events are probably not independent.

Edit: whoops, CFR only gives Russia a 9/10 score, not the full 10/10 score of 50% default probability.

by loeg

1/21/2026 at 6:19:39 PM

Iran

by blitzar

1/21/2026 at 6:28:01 PM

I'm not sure a country can survive running out of water no matter how many revolutions they put down

by thatguy0900

1/21/2026 at 10:49:11 PM

> more politically stable than the US

by blitzar

1/21/2026 at 6:07:15 PM

But I am having a hard time identifying this union/nation. Unfortunately, it feels like the EU is set on a downward trajectory.

by kavalg

1/21/2026 at 6:18:32 PM

I'm a bit baffled by this - are you saying that you can't identify a single market in the whole world that is worth to invest in & stable except US?

Also I don't see that EU as a whole is on a downward trajectory, there are a lot of areas that are super strong, one being the defence industry.

US on the other hand - who wants to invest in or trade with them when they treat the rest of the world (including close friends) as shit.

by coredev_

1/21/2026 at 6:27:43 PM

You can’t invest in EU sovereign debt though, only the constituent countries.

The problem is that US treasuries have a bunch of features that can’t be replicated because of the size of the US economy. The only choice that comes close is China whose bonds are too illiberal to trade the same (and China has no interest in liberalizing them).

by kasey_junk

1/21/2026 at 8:15:33 PM

You can actually, but the volumes are too low to absorb a massive sell-off of US treasury paper.

by jacquesm

1/22/2026 at 3:40:35 AM

It’s not just that the market isn’t deep enough. The current incarnation of EU bonds are not secured the same way typical sovereign bonds are. And they sort of can’t be without the member states ceding more sovereignty.

We’ll see if the EU member countries can approve a framework for bonds that are closer to a treasury in its guarantees, I’m skeptical but it could happen, but they don’t exist right now.

by kasey_junk

1/22/2026 at 9:09:50 AM

As they say: under enough pressure everything becomes a liquid. The current situation is in many ways unprecedented and I think that Trump may well be the antagonist that forces the EU to band together more effectively.

by jacquesm

1/21/2026 at 9:47:43 PM

So the EU should issue more volume and establish a strategy to start rotating from US debt to EU debt. No one is calling for dumping $8T of treasuries on the market overnight; it's entirely reasonable to start issuing Euro debt and communicating the expectation to start selling down US treasuries to European entities that hold them.

"Plan the work and work the plan."

by toomuchtodo

1/21/2026 at 9:50:28 PM

Yes, they should. The interesting bit here is that the USA has been an endless sink for funds simply because they have been spending way above their means, and that this worked in large part because there was trust. Breaking that trust is super risky from a US point of view. Europe has been more conservative in their spending and as a result needs a place to park their excesses, because there are not enough ways to spend those internally. I think that this is a luxury problem to have, but at the same time I realize that financing the USA any further is something that is not responsible from an EU perspective.

by jacquesm

1/22/2026 at 3:48:18 AM

It’s also part of the reserve currency dynamics. It’s not clear how the modern bond market will work in a post dollar world, we frankly don’t have an example.

It’s entirely possible that the EU can overcome the political struggles that a true EU bond brings about (I’d love to see how a bond would work that both the Hungarian and Danish and French and Greek governments would back long term) but it seems just as likely that each country will hold bonds in lots of countries, probably in some similar relationship to their trade imbalance.

But this is not some unmitigated win for the EU, there is just as likely to be really inefficient and riskier outcomes for everybody as there is some karmic punishment for the States for allowing Trump to run amok.

by kasey_junk

1/22/2026 at 9:54:46 AM

Indeed, this is both complex and risky, but it is fairly clear by now that we need to do something concrete rather than just yak about it. Hungary is indeed a problem (and has been for a long time) but I'm actually impressed with the restraint shown by the bloc to let Hungarians deal with this on their own terms as long as it does not stop the EU from handling foreign policy.

The trade imbalance angle is exactly the one that I think they will pursue because that is the one that can be made to work numerically, but great care should be taken to ensure that Germany does not end up with a disproportional amount of power. In a way the EU being fragmented but forced to work together is the best recipe for a fair outcome though the larger entities will probably always have some minor advantage in such constructs.

by jacquesm

1/22/2026 at 5:46:00 PM

Looks like it's starting. Kudos for some courage and will on the EU's part.

Macron says €300B in EU savings sent to the US every year will be invested in EU - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46722594 - January 2026

Macron says €300 billion in European savings flown to the US every year will be invested in Europe from now on. All 27 EU states agreed to establish the S&I Union, a step toward the full Capital Market Union - https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1qjtvtl/macron_says... - January 22nd, 2026

https://streamable.com/m4dejv

Savings and investments union - https://finance.ec.europa.eu/regulation-and-supervision/savi... - December 4th, 2025

by toomuchtodo

1/21/2026 at 6:30:18 PM

Not "worth to invest in," just the higher criteria GP asked for: "a more politically stable nation state." It has to be strictly more stable than the US, not just investable.

by loeg

1/21/2026 at 8:04:40 PM

Switzerland is usually the gold standard for politically stable.

by piva00

1/22/2026 at 9:24:11 AM

In the context of sovereign debt, yes. I don't even feel that that the US is stable enough. Of course, everyone sees the world through their own eyes, but in my world, the EU has been going down post-covid in terms of e.g. purchasing power, industrial base, business opportunities for the small/medium business. The defense industry is strong, because it is currently needed and funded, but how long can that be sustained?

by kavalg

1/21/2026 at 6:38:49 PM

I mean there is a second almost if not more critical requirement which is has a big enough and liquid enough debt market to function like US treasuries.

> Also I don't see that EU as a whole is on a downward trajectory

That's an extremely contrarian take that you can't justify with EU defense did good for once in it's life. Maybe we'll see something from the EU but remember the USA and EU GDP were basically identical 10 years ago now the US is 50% bigger.

Seriously in 2008 the EU had a bigger GDP and now is a fraction of the USA and member nations have done basically nothing to fix the core issues that left them behind.

> US on the other hand - who wants to invest in or trade with them when they treat the rest of the world (including close friends) as shit.

Sadly it doesn't really matter about a "want" it's a need at this point unless people are going to cut off their arm and collapse their own economies they don't really get a choice.

by tick_tock_tick

1/21/2026 at 8:43:46 PM

Fair, but a bit slower growth than US is not a downward trajectory. Also there is currency effects involved.

Isn't US injecting a lot of loaned money into the economy in a rate that might not be sustainable long term? Their debt-to-GDP ratio is way higher than EUs?

by coredev_

1/21/2026 at 11:18:45 PM

> What are some realistic alternatives to US markets here

There is nothing particularly interesting or sexy about US treasuries. You could replace a holding of $8bn to $80bn with equivalent or better rated bonds in a half hour or so.

Replacing that sort of allocation of stocks or commodities would be way harder as returns on those assets are not as simple as "pays a 4% coupon each year" - finding an equivalent of Apple or Nvidia is not a trivial task.

by blitzar

1/21/2026 at 6:04:19 PM

It depends on the goal. People buy bonds to play a certain role in their overall investment strategy. China and India have been quietly selling American bonds and focusing on gold / silver / etc. BRICS has also talked for a while about forming their own shared virtual currency but that is further away. You can buy other assets as a store of value too.

by SilverElfin

1/21/2026 at 7:53:52 PM

Same thing that happened to Spain after the New World gold and silver came in, Inflation (limited local supply to spend on and so prices raise) and debt payments, ultimately leaving Spain poor.

by downrightmike

1/21/2026 at 6:42:33 PM

There aren't any it's why the US takes in such crazy flows.

by tick_tock_tick

1/21/2026 at 10:20:06 PM

> What are some realistic alternatives to US markets here?

It seems to be precious metals. And at this point in time, especially silver. Even Indian government seems to be stockpiling silver.

by zrn900

1/21/2026 at 11:45:07 PM

At first I was leaning toward FGLD but didn't consider that current admin would blow up everything US, there are European alternatives to FGLD that OP might want to investigate that have physical metal reserves (there are many alternatives that represent various tiers of involvement in mining versus just holding precious metals, I'm speculating OP does not want to possess precious metals themselves).

by stevenwoo

1/22/2026 at 4:59:12 AM

There's KILO if you're cool with your bullion stored at the Royal Canadian Mint.

by geoka9

1/22/2026 at 5:08:39 AM

A lot of mints about the globe offer remote purchase and local storage, eg: Perth Mint in Australia - https://www.perthmint.com/invest/information-about-gold-and-...

Physical is great if you like Kangaroos, Koalas, Emus, Dragons, Snakes, Koi, etc.

They really need a Quokka: https://www.perthmint.com/shop/bullion/bullion-coins/

by defrost

1/21/2026 at 5:55:56 PM

Well, if we're talking about the value of the underlying assets - then I imagine you have all your savings in gold because the PE ratios in the US stock market are already absolutely insane.

If you're trying to escape an expected upcoming crash you don't necessarily need to look for growth but instead stability. Precious metals are always popular but simply shifting a portion of your money into an index fund of a different stock exchange should help minimize your exposure to any catastrophic loss.

This is, of course, not financial advice.

by munk-a

1/21/2026 at 7:05:52 PM

Canada?

by rixrax

1/21/2026 at 6:19:29 PM

i've wondered this myself. I thought that everyone was selling bonds and just buying equities, gold and bitcoin. isn't that only game plan? bonds aren't investible anymore for anything more than 5 year time horizon.

by heathrow83829

1/21/2026 at 6:25:47 PM

Bitcoin is going down, wherever they're fleeing it's not that

by thatguy0900

1/21/2026 at 6:21:15 PM

They can start buying Euro bonds, Gold, bonds for the great european companies like ASML, Airbus etc?? they can basically find a way to invest in their future, right? they just need to figure out the right financial vehicle?

by dwa3592

1/21/2026 at 8:18:04 PM

There isn't enough of that to offset the enormous EU holdings of US paper.

by jacquesm

1/21/2026 at 6:22:47 PM

They could just reinvest the 8 billion in all the other stuff they're holding, but something like those if they want to keep the diversification ratios high. Maybe the Yuan or Chinese companies?

by nemomarx

1/21/2026 at 5:18:33 PM

What would be more serious is if the Norwegian Government Pension Fund started to sell off US investments.

That runs around $2 trillion.

by onraglanroad

1/21/2026 at 5:56:52 PM

Avalanches can start with a single stone.

EU together with UK and Canada hold more Treasurys than the entire rest of the world combined, and if they dumped them all at once it would be significantly painful for the average American as interest rates would spike, as would inflation. The Dollar would decline against most other major currencies.

However dumping that much debt all at once would require the sellers to heavily discount a large portion of their bonds, earning them increasingly fewer, and paying in (depreciating) dollars.

It's exceedingly likely that de-dollarization accelerates from here, but it's also unlikely that even the Norwegian government sells it all at once. Rather than mass selling, expect EU entities to curtail or even cease buying US bonds altogether if the geopolitical situation doesn't improve.

by stackghost

1/21/2026 at 11:43:00 PM

> EU together with UK and Canada hold more Treasurys than the entire rest of the world combined

That is just not true? Out of the $38T, ~75% is held be US Domestic entities. Even of the remaining 25%, these 3 don’t combine together to form a majority. It’ll come out to something like $3.5T out of the $9.1T foreign holding (~38%). Or under 10% of the total debt.

https://economicsinsider.com/top-15-largest-us-treasury-hold...

by rishab178

1/21/2026 at 6:28:44 PM

The fed would almost certainly intervene aggressively resuming large scale QE to buy up treasuries and stabilize yields.

by arnonejoe

1/21/2026 at 6:40:15 PM

Which would lead to inflation right? Leading to these bonds having even lower value?

Showing that you don’t want to be the last one out since either the risk or inflation hits you.

by ViewTrick1002

1/21/2026 at 6:55:25 PM

>The fed would almost certainly intervene aggressively resuming large scale QE to buy up treasuries and stabilize yields.

Indeed and QE is a major inflationary pressure.

by stackghost

1/21/2026 at 6:39:00 PM

What if the fed ceases to exist soon?

by deadbabe

1/21/2026 at 7:01:18 PM

It won't cease to exist, it will just answer to the orangefuhrer like most other US government agencies already do.

by exe34

1/21/2026 at 6:38:08 PM

we've played this game before

by elenchev

1/21/2026 at 9:13:17 PM

In the past, the game was as played with the additional benefit of foreign bondholders and currency reserves slowing the overall velocity of money. The rest of the world has heen quietly blunting the inflationary effects of printing USD.

Most Americans - this administration included - don't know how good they have had it, and are throwing it all away due to avarice.

by overfeed

1/21/2026 at 6:51:55 PM

don't worry, because financial ouroboros

by willturman

1/21/2026 at 6:12:48 PM

> However dumping that much debt all at once would require the sellers to heavily discount a large portion of their bonds, earning them increasingly fewer, and paying in (depreciating) dollars.

I think all investors are now looking at this with this foresight. Being the first to dump seems to be the winning game here.

by JanisErdmanis

1/21/2026 at 6:15:30 PM

>I think all investors are now looking at this with this foresight. Being the first to dump seems to be the winning game here.

When you're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars worth of bonds you simply can't move that much in one go. That's an elephant-in-the-bathtub situation where your moves disturb the market because of their size.

Even the first entity to dump would still have to discount a lot of their bonds. Nobody on the bond market is going to make a $200B snap purchase.

by stackghost

1/21/2026 at 8:17:00 PM

That's exactly what will drive the sell-off. Speed is key. Being the last one to sell is going to leave you with the worst of it.

by jacquesm

1/21/2026 at 5:56:29 PM

Norway only holds $219 billion in US Treasury bonds. What investments are you talking about?

by IAmGraydon

1/21/2026 at 6:09:08 PM

https://www.nbim.no/en/investments/all-investments/

I make it only 1.5 trillion equities - they run about a 70 / 30 split stocks to bonds.

They could easily trim up their $50bn of Nvidia or their $50bn of Microsoft or their $40bn of Apple etc and put it to better use.

by blitzar

1/21/2026 at 6:01:49 PM

Maybe they wanted to say what you did, but accidently used the total worth of the whole Oil Fund (as it's called in Norway, because it was started with money taxed from oil companies extracting in Norwegian seas).

by wafflemaker

1/21/2026 at 6:05:37 PM

>> sell off US investments

I think he means also US stocks. So most of the wealth fund.

by alecco

1/21/2026 at 6:16:58 PM

You have no idea how that would destroy the Norwegian State. They are addicted to money from that fund. A collapse in it's value would have direct impact on the finances of the state. Nearly 1/4 of the budget is funded from that found a year.

by christkv

1/21/2026 at 6:53:45 PM

That's got to be a tiny amount relative to the fund size though.

Anyway, how would that destroy the fund? They'd be selling it not giving it away.

by onraglanroad

1/22/2026 at 9:56:14 AM

> That's got to be a tiny amount relative to the fund size though.

Current total market value is about $2136B, of which ~$912B is invested in the US[1].

[1]: https://www.nbim.no/en/investments/the-funds-value/ (see map at bottom for regional figures)

by magicalhippo

1/22/2026 at 10:58:12 AM

No, I mean the 25% of the Norway Government Budget must be a tiny amount of the fund.

by onraglanroad

1/22/2026 at 2:56:38 PM

The politicians have set a self-imposed limit[1] on how much they can use per year. It's currently 3% of the funds value, to ensure we don't need to reign in too much during hard times[2].

However politicians have tried to use less, for 2026 they plan[3] to use 452B NOK which is roughly 2.13%.

However as OP points out, the total budget is around 2100B NOK, so the oil money pays for roughly a quarter. And that's becoming a bit of a problem in my view as well.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_budgetary_rule

[2]: https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/okonomi-og-budsjett/norsk...

[2]: https://www.regjeringen.no/no/statsbudsjett/2026/statsbudsje...

by magicalhippo

1/21/2026 at 8:04:58 PM

The contribution of the State Fund to national pensions is around 20-25% to the state expenses

by KellyCriterion

1/22/2026 at 6:04:55 AM

And increasing year after year.

by christkv

1/21/2026 at 6:14:10 PM

This is directionally significant compared to the Danish sale(~$100 million) of US bonds.

by dwa3592

1/21/2026 at 6:09:11 PM

The problem is that Europe doesn't have a European bond market to compete against the US bond market. It has the economic size and stability but not the will right now. Europe did try it a bit during COVID but financial services are just not there yet. The Euro very well become a reserve currency in a multipolar world if Europeans decide they want to shoulder it.

by Sytten

1/21/2026 at 6:28:21 PM

That’s a weird problem to have. The US has a huge bond market in part because the US has an absolutely enormous amount of debt, and the bonds are the US debt. The EU doesn’t have bloc-wide debt, for better or for worse.

As an interesting thought experiment, imagine a central bank associated with a debt-free country issuing bond-like instruments. They would set an interest rate (perhaps with no auction, because they have no actual obligation to sell a predetermined amount, although an auction could still be used), sell bonds, delete the money used to buy the bonds, and issue new money to repay them with interest when they mature. This could be used as a way to act efficiently as a reserve currency and to exert a degree of control over inflation and the economy, kind of like how the Fed does it. The bonds would likely be considered extremely secure on account of the issue being entirely debt-free.

I would be surprised if the EU did this as such, since the EU probably does not want to be in the business of competing for capital with its own members, who do have a fair amount of debt that they need to finance.

by amluto

1/21/2026 at 8:19:15 PM

After COVID we had some but it is a tiny amount in comparison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_EU

by jacquesm

1/21/2026 at 6:33:42 PM

[American perspective] In February I looked toward Euro bond markets as a safe haven for increasing Treasury yields, but the choices did not look good. For starters it appears to be impossible to even trade in foreign bonds with traditional brokerage accounts in the United States (hosted by E-trade, Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab, etc).

Additionally, French bonds, while likely less-correlated with US Treasuries than other instruments, suffer from its own government having high debt levels; it's not a suitable safe-haven asset. Swiss and German bonds appear to be obvious alternatives. However, Swiss and German bonds' interest rates are low and in practice are little different than holding cash.

While gold appreciated in the short term, it is not simply inversely correlated with the value of the US Dollar. Its volatility is also driven by investors mitigating strict currency controls, mining productivity, and central bank activity. An unrelated downturn in one market could lead to a sell-off and wipe out gains. Gold also has no yield. Personally I think it's useful only in its physical form as a hedge for medium-term catastrophic events. Even then, a stockpile of food and clean water is likely far more valuable, if not substantially more difficult to store and maintain.

I ended up giving up, learning to love the S&P 500, and white-knuckling it ahead. Of the investable markets, the US one still generates the highest returns. (Chinese GDP growth is higher but its equities have low returns compared with other markets, due to political risk.)

by linkregister

1/21/2026 at 8:28:15 PM

    > For starters it appears to be impossible to even trade in foreign bonds with traditional brokerage accounts in the United States (hosted by E-trade, Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab, etc).

Try Interactive Brokers. They are US-based, but offer accounts in most other countries. (Insane list here: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/accounts/open-account-...) I frequently recommend them here, so much so that I must look like a shill. I assure you that this is not a sponsored post! I have been a customer for 10+ years. I describe their service as institutional in breadth, but offered to retail customers. The number of international stocks markets, futures and options markets, and fixed income markets (all types of gov't and corporate bonds) is stunning. The numbers look similar to a Tier 1 investment bank, like Morgan Stanley, could offer their institutional clients. It is unmatched for non-institutional (retail) traders in my experience. It also has crazy low fees and is wildly transparent about them. To me, the only negative point is the website is a bit slow and feels about 5 years out of date, but that's not a deal breaker for me. I can trade all equities on the website, and the more complex things (like bonds or futures) I trade using their (I assume white-labeled) Java trading app that is cross-platform.

by throwaway2037

1/21/2026 at 8:42:12 PM

+1 for Interactive Brokers. You can migrate super easy by having them filing a full ATAC. I came from Charles Schwab, which I have to keep because my employer sends GSUs to either Schwab or Morgan Stanley.

Additionally, the UX is much better (IMHO) than Schwab, both on mobile and desktop.

by marcyb5st

1/26/2026 at 6:00:57 AM

Thank you so much for sharing this info. Your response is why I keep coming back to this often ridiculous website.

by linkregister

1/21/2026 at 8:20:30 PM

And even if you tried to sidestep these restrictions you'd quickly find that your ability to deal with the EU financial system evaporates as soon as they find out that you are American.

by jacquesm

1/21/2026 at 6:20:08 PM

Is it at all realistic to expect the stable and/or fiscally conservative countries to accept the high bond yields imposed by the more fiscally loose or perceived-risky countries? Could this ever happen without the EU centralising more control over fiscal policy?

by pxeger1

1/21/2026 at 6:45:04 PM

No, it wouldn't work without the bond repayments being owed by a single fiscal entity, and hard to imagine Europe doing this for the foreseeable future even if they agree more tax harmonization and budget deficit rules.

But from the bondholder perspective, being able to pick and choose which countries to hold Euro denominated debt according to their risk tolerance is an advantage anyway.

by notahacker

1/21/2026 at 9:48:07 PM

> It has the economic size and stability but not the will right now.

The european union's GDP is a solid 50% behind the US (20 trillion vs 30 trillion). But more alarmingly the growth in the european union since the 2008 financial crisis has been totally anaemic: the growth doesn't even counter inflation and that growth only came at the cost of gigantic additional public debt. Meanwhile both the US and China's GDPs grew like mad.

I also dispute the stability of the EU: in many countries the people aren't happy at all and the far-right are winning elections everywhere. And it's only through tactics (like the center-right siding with the ultra far left in France to counter the far-right party who won the election) that parties that aren't the far-right are managing to prevent the far-right from reigning already.

For example in the European Parliament 36% of the 720 seats are for far-right parties. And that's after all the other parties colluding (including with the far left) to prevent the far right from having more seats.

And as people are more and more dissatisfied with the current situation in the EU, the far-right keep winning more and more voters (sounds familiar?).

> The Euro very well become a reserve currency in a multipolar world if Europeans decide they want to shoulder it.

The Euro is only 27 years old, is a badly conceived currency and may turn out to be one of the shortest lived currency ever. There's no way it's ready to take on the role of the USD. France's finances, the eurozone's 2nd biggest economy, are crumbling (gigantic public debt and insane public deficit) and may very well be overtaken by the International Monetary Fund (like it happened to Greece) soon.

Germany is trying very hard to ban its far-right AFD party from the elections for they know they could very well win. If I'm not mistaken the leader of the AFD said if they won, they're out of the EU. Think it cannot happen? UK left the EU already.

It's not just the EURO that may be the shortest-lived currency ever: the EU is actually in trouble.

by TacticalCoder

1/21/2026 at 5:48:01 PM

It's self evident that this is just the beginning. Expect one group of pundits to pretend this is irrelevant as long as possible.

by josefritzishere

1/21/2026 at 5:58:35 PM

A pundit saying "oh no, the world is ending" gets a lot more coverage than "nothing to see here, move along."

Then again, they say whatever they need to in order for their paychecks to keep coming.

by shermantanktop

1/21/2026 at 9:25:54 PM

Talking heads serve the interests of their wealthy benefactors who have gone all out to own/control all of news media. Benefactors whose wealth is almost entirely tied up in securities.

by overfeed

1/21/2026 at 1:18:04 PM

Swedish pension fund Alecta cuts US Treasury holdings citing US politics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46705118 - January 2026 (0 comments)

Bessent Shrugs Off 'Irrelevant' Danish Treasuries Sales - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46702927 - January 2026 (0 comments)

Danish Pension Fund AkademikerPension to Exit US Treasuries - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46693791 - January 2026 (2 comments)

Danish pension fund to divest its U.S. Treasuries - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46692594 - January 2026 (730 comments)

by toomuchtodo

1/21/2026 at 6:28:25 PM

is America great again yet?

by wnevets

1/21/2026 at 7:47:51 PM

Hottest country in the world! Tremendous respect!

by moogly

1/22/2026 at 3:09:42 AM

no all caps? I sense a lack of patriotism

by insane_dreamer

1/22/2026 at 10:51:21 AM

There goes your social score.

by jacquesm

1/21/2026 at 6:33:31 PM

[flagged]

by stronglikedan

1/21/2026 at 6:44:34 PM

[dead]

by ceilajones4312

1/21/2026 at 6:18:43 PM

An equally valid headline is "Investors purchased $8B of US Treasury Bonds". Never really got the point of people announcing US Treasury sales like its a big thing. Someone else not thinking with their emotions can, and will buy them. Its like announcing publicly you are selling your Honda. Its your Honda bro, sell it.

by ectospheno

1/21/2026 at 6:41:12 PM

"Investors purchased $8B of US Treasury Bonds from the non-issuing entity."

If you're Honda, you'd prefer that the purchaser of any Honda is purchasing their Honda from Honda. Honda doesn't care about the secondary sale of any one Honda, per se, but they'd certainly care if people start opening dealerships with fleets of effectively brand new Hondas immediately next to every Honda dealership.

Additionally, every seller that was a previous long-term holder represents decreased demand for Treasuries at the primary auction. Mark Carney put it eloquently yesterday during his speech with his analogy of "taking the sign out of the window". This represents someone taking their bid out of the auction.

by willturman

1/21/2026 at 6:25:33 PM

This is not exactly right. True, $8B is not earth shattering because of the US's enormous debt. But by removing a potential $8B owner, it is a reduction in demand, and thus a tiny reduction in price. This is literally the first rule of pricing: "supply and demand".

Sure, someone else is on the other side of the deal. But their demand is also satiated at a certain price point. Hell, if they wanted to buy from other sellers then it's not like T bills were not liquid.

Would you say the same if Norway's wealth fund offloaded their $181B? At those scales it would be more likely that it'd be visibly price affecting, and therefore affect the US's ability to borrow at existing cost.

So yes, when you sell your one NVDA, you are reducing demand and thus price. Epsilon, but nonzero.

by knorker

1/21/2026 at 6:59:24 PM

The fund sold off most of their US bonds, some journalist heard about it and considered it newsworthy and published an article. DI.se’s readers are largely also benefactors/owners of Alecta’s, so that seems fair.

Someone else considered it worthy of sharing here and enough people here found it interesting enough to get it to the front page. I don’t quite understand why, but it seems like it’s striking some sort of chord.

by sakjur

1/21/2026 at 8:48:04 PM

It is the second substantial sell from EU. Additionally, those things gain momentum fast since the later you sell the less money you make from the bonds you are selling.

So everyone doesn't want to be last and the sell-off takes off fast and violently, forcing unmanageable interest rates.

by marcyb5st

1/21/2026 at 9:46:37 PM

What was the first substantial sale?

by daneel_w

1/21/2026 at 6:37:08 PM

It has importance beyond that someone else bought the bonds. It also suggests they will not be buyers in the future. If they represent the beginning of a trend and Europe stops buying US bonds, that will be a serious blow to the US economy.

by ternaryoperator

1/22/2026 at 3:14:30 AM

You could say the same when your stock price drops because large investors dumped your stock suddenly. Yes, there was a buying party (or they wouldn't have been able to sell), but the price drop hurts your company and worse can trigger more sales and more price drops.

similar with the US T-bonds - this pushes the yield up making it more expensive for the US to finance its debt (which already consumes nearly a fifth of the entire federal budget).

by insane_dreamer

1/21/2026 at 8:22:07 PM

If Honda wants to keep the value of Honda at what it is today and enough people are selling their Honda's then Honda is at some point going to have to support the market if they want to have any chance of selling Honda's in the future. And Honda has only so much capital to spend before the company itself is at risk.

by jacquesm

1/21/2026 at 6:22:23 PM

The classic “Sir, this is a Wendy’s”

Or if we want to be cynical, they hope the price will drop on this news and they can buy back in more cheaply.

by zeroonetwothree

1/21/2026 at 6:25:50 PM

Because the implication is that underlying asset is regressing or degrading. It's very obvious, and this comment just highlights your lack of reading comprehension.

by mktk1001

1/21/2026 at 5:41:13 PM

A brief search suggests this is around 1/4000th of the total US treasury market, so if this has any significance at all, it's symbolic.

by jakobnissen

1/21/2026 at 5:47:25 PM

1/4000th in this context seems huge to be honest.

by margalabargala

1/21/2026 at 6:11:25 PM

If the US paid $8B towards it debt every _day_ it would take over thirteen _years_ (completely ignoring interest accumulation, which isn't realistic) to pay off $38T in debt.

I don't see how this is huge in context, it is indeed symbolic.

Please don't get me wrong here, I am neither advocating the selling or not selling of US bonds. This specific sale just isn't statically significant in a vacuum. If this precipitates a snowball effect of bond-selling, completely different story.

by irishcoffee

1/21/2026 at 6:16:34 PM

Regarding your last sentence, this isn't happening in a vacuum, and rejecting the risk-free assumption behind US debt seems like a symbol with a lot of information content.

by wrs

1/21/2026 at 9:17:48 PM

Same point. It would need to increase by: an order of magnitude AND happen every day before it becomes a problem. $8B (actually $260m) isn’t moving markets. $80B/day for a month, that would move the needle.

I understand why people want this to be a bigger deal. It just isn’t. Not yet.

by irishcoffee

1/23/2026 at 8:37:00 AM

> If the US paid $8B towards it debt every _day_ it would take over thirteen _years_ (completely ignoring interest accumulation, which isn't realistic) to pay off $38T in debt.

> I don't see how this is huge in context, it is indeed symbolic.

I think if you approach the average new home buyer and said "We've reduced your bond repayment term to 13 years. Your monthly repayment will not increase" they will certainly consider it more than symbolic.

IOW, 13 years to payback is nothing compared to what we usually see for PE ratios of a bubbling stock, or repayment terms on a large loan, etc - it is definitely much much more impactful than you think.

> This specific sale just isn't statically significant in a vacuum. If this precipitates a snowball effect of bond-selling, completely different story.

I think that's the problem here - we're (all the commenters) trying to determine if this is the first pebble that starts the avalanche. All bank runs (in this case, a run on the debt in US dollars) starts with small but significant withdrawals (i.e. selling your dollars for some other money) that indicate to other holders to get their money out while it is still there to be gotten.

by lelanthran

1/21/2026 at 10:57:09 PM

> If the US paid $8B towards it debt every _day_

The US currently borrows an additional $9.5B every _day_ to fund itself.

by blitzar

1/21/2026 at 11:11:30 PM

I think we agree with each other. They borrow more than this paltry amount every single day and nothing changes. Selling less than the daily borrow amount, exactly one time, is a rounding error at best.

by irishcoffee

1/21/2026 at 5:49:49 PM

>> A brief search suggests this is around 1/4000th of the total US treasury market, so if this has any significance at all, it's symbolic.

If someone thinks the value of those bonds is going to drop, then selling would have great significance for the seller.

by phkahler

1/21/2026 at 6:21:36 PM

But it might also signify (as in: be a symbol) that European funds are less willing to buy future US bonds, which has a more dramatic impact.

by tgv

1/21/2026 at 5:57:52 PM

No one wants to be left holding the bag

by twelvedogs

1/21/2026 at 5:46:38 PM

Every waterfall begins with a drop.

by deadbabe

1/21/2026 at 6:23:33 PM

But 99.99% of drops do not cause a waterfall

by zeroonetwothree

1/21/2026 at 6:45:41 PM

[dead]

by gulfofamerica

1/21/2026 at 6:57:23 PM

Drops don't cause waterfalls. Gravity does.

by willturman

1/21/2026 at 5:55:38 PM

"There have been spontaneous demonstrations amongst the workers voicing their joy and gratitude at our happy new way of life." - Orwell, more or less.

by forgetfreeman

1/21/2026 at 6:43:36 PM

Faith Collapsing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68DJCaqEpDc

by blipvert

1/21/2026 at 7:20:45 PM

Flawless response elevated to performance art by the username.

by forgetfreeman

1/21/2026 at 6:45:12 PM

[dead]

by ceilajones4312

1/21/2026 at 6:39:33 PM

It seems like if they are trying to put pressure on the US government it might be easier to dump Tesla stock. Maybe the billionaires and MAGA would buy to keep it propped up but if it turned into a selling frenzy musk could be in trouble.

by deeg

1/21/2026 at 5:45:02 PM

Symbolism has importance

by oulipo2

1/21/2026 at 6:08:40 PM

Exactly but it has to be recognized as such. It’s easy to fall into self delusion and make it into some “oh yeah this will be collapse of the US empire, finally” story.

Not, that it also fun to go with that story, but as long as everyone in the room understands it’s sort of a wishful fantasy.

by rdtsc

1/21/2026 at 6:19:09 PM

We might, in hindsight, see this as the first signs of the fall but anyone expecting a global empire to just collapse like a building, even in the accelerated pace of the modern world, is going to be disappointed.

This will take years, possibly a decade or more...if the US is, in fact, collapsing.

by b00ty4breakfast

1/21/2026 at 6:10:33 PM

Not really - it is going to show the world what alternatives people are pursuing as a strategy. Where they put their money will cause others to do the same. And the more people do it, the safer those new assets become. That will cause even more people to make the move.

Note that China has been selling US treasuries for months now (https://www.barrons.com/articles/china-sells-treasuries-9-st...) and there are signs that India has been quietly selling large amounts too. So it feels like the start of something much bigger, a total decoupling from the US due to its unstable politics, foreign policy, and quickly accumulating debt (Trump has added $5 trillion already and may add much more).

by SilverElfin