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

55 pointsposted 5 hours ago
by madspindel

21 Comments

zppln

19 minutes ago

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?

toomuchtodo

6 minutes ago

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

arjie

2 minutes ago

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.

SilverElfin

3 minutes ago

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.

ares623

15 minutes ago

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. “

munk-a

12 minutes ago

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.

onraglanroad

an hour ago

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

That runs around $2 trillion.

stackghost

11 minutes ago

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.

IAmGraydon

11 minutes ago

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

alecco

2 minutes ago

>> sell off US investments

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

wafflemaker

6 minutes ago

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).

jakobnissen

26 minutes ago

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.

margalabargala

20 minutes ago

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

phkahler

18 minutes ago

>> 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.

twelvedogs

10 minutes ago

No one wants to be left holding the bag

forgetfreeman

12 minutes ago

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

oulipo2

22 minutes ago

Symbolism has importance

deadbabe

21 minutes ago

Every waterfall begins with a drop.

josefritzishere

19 minutes ago

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

shermantanktop

9 minutes ago

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.

toomuchtodo

5 hours ago

Related:

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)