Short seller Jim Chanos scoffs at former SVB boss’s suggestion that the Fed’s sharp policy shift toppled the bank

• Jim Chanos scoffed at remarks made by Silicon Valley Bank’s ex-CEO that a sharp shift in Fed policy had brought the bank down. 
• Former CEO Greg Becker highlighted the Fed’s aggressive interest-rate hikes as a factor that led to SVB’s collapse.  
• “What SVB did was make a massive bet that rates would stay low. They lost that bet,” Chanos said on Twitter.

Jim Chanos scoffed at the former Silicon Valley Bank chief’s suggestion that a sharp policy change by the Federal Reserve was largely responsible for the lender’s shocking collapse in March.

SVB had loaded up on long-term bonds during 2020-2021, based on the Fed’s messaging from the period that any spike in inflation would be “transitory” and interest rates would remain low, Greg Becker, the bank’s ex-CEO, said in a prepared testimony released ahead of a US Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday.