The US Paper Dump Continues: Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Sells All Of Its US MBS Exposure
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
10/29/2011
Two days ago we noted that foreigners are selling US paper at a record pace, whether to raise capital in a locked out liquidity environment like French banks, or to make a politicial statement, like China. Today we get the first confirmation to this from Norway’s Sovereign Wealth fund, best known for its prediction that it would buy and hold Greek bonds in perpetuity back in September 2010. Just recall: “Norway has taken the view that [Greek bonds] will not [default]. The Greek holdings are particularly interesting because the consensus in the market is that they will at some point restructure or default.” Well, about a year later it is now official that the best the Norway SWF can hope for is a 50% recovery. So what does it do? It proceeds to dump US paper. Mortgage Backed Securities first. Because if it announced that a sovereign wealth fund instead of buying into the biggest ponzi ever, we finally defecting from it, then all bets would be of. Bloomberg reports: “Norway’s $570 billion sovereign wealth fund sold all its holdings in U.S. mortgage-backed securities as part of a shift of its fixed-income portfolio. The fund holds no mortgage bonds issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the U.S.-controlled mortgage financiers, and an “insignificant” amount of private home loan-backed bonds, said Yngve Slyngstad, chief executive officer of Norges Bank Investment Management, today in an interview in Oslo. “We’ve reduced our holdings of mortgage-backed securities,” he said. “MBS has been taken out of our internal policy benchmark. This means that we don’t have mortgage-backed securities issued by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae any longer.”
The Rest…HERE
